


Light and Dark

by selenagomez



Category: Marvel
Genre: Adam take care of the Trix, Dom/sub, F/M, Psychological Torture, Torture, Trixie is not cut out to be a hero
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 09:12:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 30
Words: 52,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5491736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selenagomez/pseuds/selenagomez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The only way to solve a maths problem is to have both numbers involved. However getting involved with the wrong side of the equation is usually frowned upon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Beginning

It's a flash of images, the blurry edges of a battle field. There's a suit, could be Dan. Could be Tony she doesn't know, there's the other guy. She's looking down a line of people that she care's about. The other guy has always been tricky to see, because he doesn't make choices like a regular human. He used to be a block for her, but not anymore. She see's him, she see's all of them. Watches as they move through the streets, hears the sound of a car being thrown across the street. Their advance will go well as long as nobody gets distracted. She notes the amount of people on the street, and she sees clearly that there will be a side street with no civilians in. Until she doesn't. The edges of the vision close in on themselves and she snaps back to reality. 

She breathes heavily as she sits back in her seat. "There's a side street, if the other guy is kept easy around the noises.. then he doesn't get distracted. If someone keeps him on track." She is nervous, she is always is when she gives her predictions. What if she's wrong? What if someone makes a last minute decision. What if someone changes the plan, she can't be certain. She can't. She could get people killed.

"That's good Miss Banner, you were out for four minutes then. I need you to look at the same thing but more closely in regard to who would be the best person to keep Doctor Banner on target." The blonde woman with the clipboard tells her, without looking up. Trixie tries to get her breathing more even, it's always more difficult when she's already stressed. She needs to find a centre point and stay calm. Her meds don't work as well when she uses her vision, they're designed to work against anxiety in a regular human. When she's using her abilities, her body isn't functioning like a regular human.

She focuses on the other guy, she has to steer clear of thinking about her Dad. Of seeing him after this is done, of how much she wants to see him and Lia. They keep saying that it hasn't been that long that she has been in here. But she feels like it's been forever, it's her Dissociative Amnesia. She used to have a good handle on it, but that was before she had spent so long in a row. Trying to see around people that she doesn't know. It seems like it's been a lifetime of questions, she can't even remember which timelines she has looked at and which ones she hasn't. She likes to have a list, she just wants to know what the time is. She's always looking for time.

She can see, the morph from Bruce to Hulk but she can't see the trigger. She flicks from person to person, it's Tony in the suit. Dan wouldn't keep him calm, he would worry about him. Because Dan is Lias person. It would be a terrible mistake to send him out with the other guy, Lia is there then. She see's Dan and Lia laughing together while Dan tries to teach Lia how to change a light bulb. She smiles, and then she's back in the room.

"Not the Iron Kid. He would distract." She says, out of breath. Trixie has no idea how she got out of breath, she can only have been out for a few seconds. Right? Yet the blonde with the clipboard has moved. She's standing against the wall now, pen tapping on the wooden surface beneath. Trixie frowns a little. 

"What else?"

"I didn't see anything else."

"How about Abatu." 

It's an immediate vision, the other guy trying to protect Lia. A flying car hitting Lia, her sisters twisted body hitting the pavement. A delicate stream of blood, leaking from under that bright red hairline. A howl from the other guy, a rampage. 

"No. It could go very badly. And my sister doesn't do field work. Not like that." Trixie snaps, bile rising in the back of her throat as she tries to burn the vision from her mind. Trying to block it from being one of the many things that appears behind her eyelids whenever she lets them flutter shut for more than a second. She misses when it was easy to turn off, she misses the peace. Somedays she even misses the travelling, but most of all she misses when it was just her and Lia. Just her and her sister.

"Could you try again Miss Banner. Give us who would be a good focus point for Doctor Banner."

She wants to say no, she practically has sweat dripping down her forehead as she sits in the chair. But she focuses anyway, but it's no use. It's just Lias body all over again.

"I can't see.. I need a break." Trixie says, her hands shaking. 

"It will be time for a break soon Miss Banner if you could just try again."

Against her better judgement she tries, squeezing her eyes shut and looking past Lia. She see's the line of them again. The line up of people who matter to her, and then she looses it. It's flashes, memories. Lia and her in matching dresses on their birthday in Peru. It's one of her favourite memories, there was a cake and two new books. Bruce teaching her how to solve quadratic equations, the way Lias face lit up when Trixie had given her first pair of high heels. Visions, the man with the blue eyes, Dan and Lias first kiss. Things in between, Bruce dead, Lia dead, the screaming that just won't stop when a building comes down, New York on fire. 

Trixie bangs her hands on the table, something physical something real. It's the only way she knows to bring herself back. To make it stop. 

"I can't. I can't look anymore."

Her lip trembles, as tears leak down her face. Everyones too close and she tries to cover her face.

"Miss Banner. Come on now, this is important you need to focus."

She shakes her head, tears streaking down her cheeks.

"I can't.. I don't know. I don't know what's real anymore."

"Miss Banner, we're talking about stopping an attack you informed us of. But we need more details."

"I told you, I can't. I can't see."

"Miss Banner."

"No. No. I won't. I want my Dad."

"Miss Banner could you please calm down-"

"I want my Dad. Leave me alone. I can't.. I won't. I want Lia... Help."

They move towards her like a plague, just faceless people in white coats taking their notes. They're not heroes, they're not anything. They're just taking notes on things that might happen. Trixie blinks trying to feel a little less disorientated. Trying to find some kind of way to fight them off.

"Miss Banner we're not trying to hurt you. We thought you wanted to help."

"Dad! Lia..." She calls again, looking at the glass that she knows someone is stood behind. Appealing directly. "Please, please. I can't."

"Miss Banner I'm going to have to ask you to calm down."

"No. No. Stay away.. Stay away," Trixie stands, and then looses her balance her head spinning. Her head hitting the floor hard as she does so, just grateful that as she slipped into unconsciousness that it was only blackness that awaited her. 

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Please state your name. Your age. Your address. And the name of all your known living relatives.”

  
“My name is Trixabelle Grace Banner. I’m seventeen years old. I live on 200 Park Avenue. I have a twin sister named Lia Rebecca Banner, and our fathers name is Bruce Banner.”

  
“Thank You. Now please state clearly. Your codename. Your ability. And your business here at SHIELD.”

  
“MUDU. Foresight. I work here.”

  
Trixie hates this new procedure. She’d been begging since the day that they introduced it to be exempt. The combination between the red light from the camera blinking in her eyes and the constant gaze of the interviewer makes her skin crawl. She wants the safety of her books, field work has never been for her. She doesn’t see how sitting down employees in a sealed glass room every time they come in and out of the building. She’s a teenage girl, with the ability to see the future not one of the super villains that they lock up here every day. 

“What did you do today Trixie?”

  
“I sat with my father and Tony Stark and went through the eventualities for stopping The Miner. Then I took my lunch break at precisely four o clock and got my Dad and sister something from the bakery. Then I came back here and clocked back in at five, I talked to no one but the cashier.” 

If someone doesn’t tell her why she’s being forced through these questions every day, why it matters who she spoke to and where she’s been. Then she is quitting, finding a better way of spending her time. She’s so tired these days, loosing hours of her life trying to search for each and every detail. They don’t seem to understand, that she can’t be certain. Each time they sit her down she is missing one of the most important factors. The opponent, they can have her meet each and every single member of ground staff and have her search through every possibility until she’s so disorientated that she wants to pass out. But it won’t change the fact that she is almost half blind. It's not as bad as it was, she's not sealed in a locked room looking for impossible things. But it's still draining. Some mornings she can barely get out of bed, let alone think about trying to predict a full scale attack. 

She’s glad that her Dad is the one she speaks to now, she nearly went insane before. Before he brought some ethics. She's never quite told him and Lia what happened it there, it doesn't seem right. They were only trying to get her to help people, they probably didn't realise just how bad things were. Sometimes she barely sleeps, nightmares of the hulk twisted in pain, of Bruce lying dead on the ground long after the other guy melts away. Of Lia being involved, of Lia suffering after she uses her ability. While she can prevent those eventuality's from becoming true by seeing them, it doesn’t mean that they hurt any less when she does. SHIELD is important. But why does being a ‘hero’ feel so much like torture. 

“Did you speak to or see this man at any point today?” 

  
Trixie looks at the picture, and keeps her face impartial. It’s the same picture they show her everyday, and she shakes her head and then finally looks down as the interviewer turns off the camera.

“You’re free to go Miss Banner, thank you for your co-operation.”

  
Trixie grabs her satchel, inside her head she gives a sassy remark but in reality she simply slips out of the room. Glad to be done with seeing for the day.


	2. Blue Eyes

One of the most comforting things for Trixie about Lia, is that most of the time when Lia enters a room she makes enough noise to wake a bear from hibernation. Trixie likes things that ground her in reality, and Lia tossing a shopping bag on the nearest chair and clambering up on a stool to watch Trixie cooking is very real. Their floor never feels like home till Lia is around, throwing her jacket over the back of the nearest thing she can reach and chattering about the newest thing on her mind. 

“Trixie. Have you seen that there is a street performer working right outside the building. He was one of those statue guys and at first I thought he was just an actual statue so I tried to touch him.. but then it turned out he was actually human..” Lia starts, and then leans over to peer over the breakfast bar at the pan that Trixie has on the stove. “What are you cooking? It smells good, also what’s for dessert?” 

“Did you apologise to the statue man?” Trixie asked, trying to fight a yawn. It’s only six but she feels like she could already sleep through into the next week. As she stirs the paella that is simmering on the stove. “Paella with sweet bread, and then there is lemon cake for afters.” Lia was already investigating the bowl that held the icing for the sweet cake, and Trixie moved to try and slap her hand away. “Lia! Wait, I brought you a donut like an hour ago. You’ll spoil the icing putting your finger in it.”

"Yes, yes I apologised and then I spoke to him about how he got started on being a performer. I don't think that I could stand still for that long.. do you think that it takes a long time for him to paint himself all one colour like that.. I bet it stains." Lia pouted but sat back after Trixie slapped her hand away. “An hour is such a long time Trixie. Feed me!” She demanded, banging her hand on the table. Trixie rolled her eyes and sprinkled seasoning into the pan, licking her lips a little. She mulled over the day in her mind and then looked up at her sister again.

“Have you had to carry out the new safety proceeder?” She asked, it might seem a little sudden to Lia but Trixie wanted to know if her twin had heard anything. She was curious about why it mattered if she had spoken to the man in the picture, and why they needed to record every time they asked her.

“Nope but Dan mentioned it. Something about asking mundane questions and such. Lance had to do it, and I had to wait for him. But I found one of those water machines with the bubbles so I didn’t get too bored.” Lia explained, as she made another attempt to get her fingers into the icing. Trixie used her wooden spoon to chase her off and wondered why Lia had not been subjected to the same process as her and Dan. She made a note to speak to him about it later. "Why do you ask?"

"Oh.. It's just really weird. They make me do it everytime I go to the bakery and then come back into the building." Trixie explained. "They ask all about who you've been talking to and if you know the exact timings of how long you were gone.. which is sometimes a pain for me.. You know."

"That's weird. I would never remember exactly how long I'd been gone." Lia replied, frowning. Trixie sighed a little, and went back to stirring the contents of the pan for a moment. She thought it was pretty rich to ask her about time, while she tried to keep a routine it was always difficult with things being the way that they were. 

“Is Dan joining us for dinner?” Trixie asked, trying to lighten the mood a little and knowing that his presence at the dinner table was something that both Lia and her enjoyed. “Dad is staying late at the lab, so if he’s not it’s just you and me.” 

“Nope. He’s doing dinner with Tony and Pepper.” Lia replied looking a little crestfallen, and making a final snatch for some icing before slipping down and wandering off into the apartment. Trixie sighed, she had meant to cheer Lia up. Not bring her down. Hopefully the lemon cake would be enough.

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She’s been dreaming of a bar lately, which is strange since New York dive bars aren’t the kind of places that she usually frequents. In her dream she is there for a reason, she can feel that. So much of the place is blurry, people that she has never met crowd her. Their faces blurred, the sides of the bar wobbling. She can’t get a focus, she can’t find her own motivation. It’s too dependent on other factors. 

The only part of the image that is sharp is him. The same man that she’s been seeing for half her life. She calls him blue eyes, because she swears that she could pick out those eyes even in a crowd of a thousand people. His hair colour has varied over the years, blonde or brown. She knows the way his lips curl into a smirk, and how his hand feels on the small of her back. Yet she has never met, It’s impossible, that she could possibly see every detail of someone so clearly and for so long without ever having even passed them by in the street. Everything she knows about her powers speak to the contrary. And that is how she knows he is simply a dream.

This particular version of the dream is longer than usual, it usually starts and ends with her making her way through the crowd and then seeing him.  But tonight it’s longer, and never before has the location of their meeting been apparent. Before it's always just been static that she can't fight through to see, but tonight she can pick out clear details of landscape smell the scent of booze in the air. She’s being escorted to the table by someone who she can’t see, the face and body warped like plastic that has fallen into the fire. He watches her as she draws near, and she can hear her own breath. Feel her heart beating so hard that it’s nearly breaking through her chest. 

When she finally reaches the table he looks her up and down, and she wants to look away she really does. But she can’t. And for the first time he speaks, loud and clear.

“Tell me your name.”

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

As soon as she gets into work the next morning Trixie is looking for someone who can speak to her about the safety proceeder. While she knows that it's a slight long shot that anyone will even start to tell her anything, she'll never know anything if she doesn't try. Most of the people that she works with are just basic scientists and she already knows that her Dad has no idea why they're doing it, because she asked him the first day that they started. Her other major problem is that she avoids a lot of the senior members of staff for her own reasons and so they won't be too keen on answering any of her questions. Not when she no longer answers any of theirs.

However after waiting near one of the meeting rooms she managed to catch hold of Peter Lambast who she knew worked in senior security. He knew her father and had a particular soft spot for Lia, so she hoped that the family charm might extend to her. 

"Excuse me. Mr Lambast, could I speak with you for a moment." She cursed that she had been too startled by the extension of her dream to have played out this conversation in vision before attempting to engage in it. The man looked a little confused but stopped and shrugged.

"Of course Trixie, what can I help you with?" He asked, stopping walking to listen to her.

Trixie picked at the sleeve of her cardigan for a moment as she mustered the courage to ask the question. "I.. I was just wondering what the purpose of the new security measure is.. It's been going on for a while now, and I was just. I was just curious to know why?" The words didn't come easy, but she felt like once she had started it wouldn't be all that productive to stop.

Lambast regarded her for a moment. "Well I'm not technically supposed to be speaking to you about this before I've spoken to your father. But since you asked... Follow me for a moment." Trixie was taken aback, this had not been the response she had been expecting to her rather intrusive question. Usually SHIELD were cagey about almost everything, it sounded so out of character for them to give up information with just a simple question. But she followed Lambast all the same, as he lead her into one of the buildings many computer conference rooms. On screen was the same man that she had been shown in the photo, only there were many different pictures of him on the wall now. Including some of him speaking to various people some of which she recognised as members of SHIELD.

"You may have heard Miss Banner that there have been a few breaches in security in the past few months." Lambast started. His tone wasn't all that business like or grave, it reminded Trixie more of someone who was giving some kind of sales pitch. "At first we thought that we had yet another spy in our mix.. but then we realised that the leaks were coming from more than one member of staff." Trixie raised an eyebrow, very confused as to why he was sharing this with her. "We searched through the background of the staff member who had been responsible for the leaks and found no similarities between them. Except one. All the members of staff who had breached security had spoken to the same man. All of them claim that he told them to do it. That they found themselves compelled to act in that manner, on his words alone."

Trixie raised an eyebrow, she knew of the history of the organisation and it seemed more likely that they were all a part of a secret society than that they were compelled to do it by a stranger. 

"Yes, that was my reaction when I heard the story as well." Lambast confirmed. "However. After getting one of our agents to meet with this man while wearing a camera, I had to change my mind." Lambast pressed play on a nearby remote and Trixie watched as the man from the photo got a woman to smash a glass into her own face and then ordered the agent to bring him a microchip containing information regarding SHIELDS employees financial information. 

"Did he do it?" Trixie asked, still unclear why Lambast was telling her all this.

"Yes. But not before he handed over the video. We attempted to restrain him, but he would have killed himself before he let us stop him from handing the numbers over."

"Ok.." Trixie wanted to ask what the point of telling her all this was, but instead she simply nibbled at her lip and looked at the face of the man on the screen. It was by no means impossible that he had an ability. After all she could see the future and Lia could potentially wipe out the entire human race with her palm alone they were by no means the only people with skills. Mind control wasn't that out there.

"Of course I'm sure you'll agree that a man like this needs to be stopped."

"Sure..." Trixie felt like that kind of statement was dangerous, it was emotive and there was only one response that was in any way socially acceptable.

"We're going to go up against him.. but.. we need to know what he's going to do. What he might ask our team to do." Lambast said carefully, and then Trixie understood. Of course, they wanted her to look for what he might ask the team to do. To predict his moves so that they could dodge them.

"I'm not going to be able to see his decisions. You know that, they won't be closely enough intertwined." She replied, already half making her way to leave. She wasn't going to even begin to put herself through that kind of fruitless torture.

"Unless you met him.." 

Trixie turned sharply. "What?"

"Unless you met him. You wouldn't be able to see his decisions unless you had met him."


	3. Old and New

She won’t give them an answer then and there, she knows what the right thing to do is. Of course she does. The noble thing to do, would be to agree to meet this guy. If she spent more than a couple of moments in his presence she would be able to get a pretty clear read on him. If she spent an hour in the same place, he would be as familiar as some of the SHIELD employees who’s futures she sought out regularly. But she’s scared. She has never been cut out for field work, the thought of being out and about and exposed like that makes her want to scrabble in her bag for more anxiety meds. Lambast tells her to think about it, that she doesn’t have to answer right away, implores her to take the rest of the day off to think about it. But she feels like there is a clock ticking over the top of her head. That now that she knows, she has a responsibility to do the right thing.

Trixie finds Bruce and tells him that she doesn’t feel well and that she’s going home. He worries for a moment and asks if she needs someone to go with her, but she assures him that she just feels a little overwhelmed that she just needs to sleep. It’s not a lie, she feels as if she could pass out for a million years and she would welcome the chance if she wasn’t worried that she would dream. Exiting the building, she decides that walking might help her to clear her head so she neglects the rank filled with bright yellow cars and walked along the street instead. The side walk littered with auburn coloured leaves that announced autumn to her as she made her way towards home. She wonders what Lia would do if she was was in her position, she already knows that Dan wouldn’t have even taken a breath before agreeing to meet with this nameless name. Grudging she admits to herself that it wouldn’t have taken Lia long to agree either, they were both better people than her.

Her train of thought is interrupted by a sudden change in view, instead of the leaf strewn side walk she’s transported to a tea shop. She recognises it, as a place that a friend of hers from boarding school had once made her go on valentines day one year. The colour red is prominent, plush cushions surround her and that same overly sweet smell assaults her nose. The people within are blurred, so she knows it’s not just a memory. She is also not present in the vision, despite her searching. She is not being faced with her own future, she searches for someone that she recognises and frowns when she see’s the blonde with the glasses. Her heart clenching a little, focusing in she watches as the blonde hands over an envelope to a man who is nothing but static. Trixie tries to focus in on them further to see what is revealed as the man rips open the envelope. But something hits her shoulder, and she jolts. Panting as she slips uncomfortably back onto the New York street.

“Miss. Miss can you hear me..” She blinks, head spinning slightly as she attempts to back away from the stranger who is touching her. She’s unable to help herself, she see’s the date that the woman is going on that evening, the cold takeaway that she will eat in two days time. Hears snippets of the phonecall she will carry out with her mother. When she manages to snap back to the present, people are crowding her. She has no idea how much time has passed, she can’t have been standing upright for this long can she? She pushes, and shoves. Fighting the future of those she passes as she does so, she’s seen enough for one day.

              --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s usually Lia who comes to her bed at night, the redhead worming her way into Trixies space with a smile. But Trixie needs her that evening, needs the rest that she brings. Lia plays with the strap of Trixies tank top when she slides into bed with her.

“Are you okay?”

Trixie considers her answer for a moment. “I’m tired Lia.” She replies, not meeting her twins eyes, and burying her face in Lias chest,

“I’m tired too.” Lia replies, her fingers worrying the strap as she speaks. “I was sparring with Lance today. He made me do it for ages.”

“Well at least you’ll have the upper hand on me next time we fight.” She mumbles through a yawn. 

“Yeah. I’ll beat you up next time we fight.” Lia agrees and then they lie in comfortable silence until sleep takes them. Trixie feeling comforted by Lias body wrapped around hers. 

                      -------------------------------------------------------------------

She agrees of course, despite want Lambast said she knew that she didn't really have any choice. Now that she had been given the information it was really her duty to use it. She's just surprised by quite how quickly it all happens, she's not sure why though. It only took them finding out about her and Lia, for them to start testing their abilities. It was hardly surprising that now that she had agreed they wanted her to solve the problem as soon as possible. Funnily enough the most difficult part of the entire process was deciding on a place for her to meet the guy. All the places he had been sighted were 21 and over sort of places, and Trixie only foresaw herself getting turned down from entering any place like that. 

In the end they picked a bar that he was known to visit, Trixie saw that they were lax on entry there and that she would get in as long as she wore something that would vaguely appeal to the bouncer there. She wouldn't be ordering any alcohol, so she wouldn't have much trouble at all. She was assured that there would be a car waiting outside and that there would be someone there in the bar who would make sure that if something happened to her, if she was ordered to do something that she didn't want to do that she could be dragged out. She insisted that they not speak to Bruce about it, she knew that it was the right thing to do and there was no need for the 'she's a mentally unstable minor' thing to be brought up.

So here she was, adjusting her bow outside a bar in a side of New York that she had only visited when Lia had brought her around the area. Insisting that she had found the best hot dog stand in the entire city. Trixie nodded to the car outside, and then after taking a deep breath. Walked past the bouncer without trouble, once inside her breath caught in her throat. It was the bar. Blue eyes bar. She almost walked right back out again, this couldn't be possible. He was a dream. This couldn't be happening right here, right now. She swallowed her fear, walking forward. It was eiirie seeing the faces that had previously been like unfinished line drawings now be in such sharp focus. She was at an angle in the bar that she hadn't seen before, but it was unmistakably the same location. Of course she had always been missing her entrance before, so here it was. One of the missing pieces. 

"There you are." Trixie turned, confused at the sudden voice behind her and had to catch her breath as she came face to face with the man from the photographs. 

"Sorry?" She asked, her knees shaking. They were rumbled, she was going to die. 

"There's someone that you need to meet. You're going to come with me to meet him." He said in a calm way, smiling at her. Trixie took a deep breath, she wanted to say no to try and make some kind of excuse but she find herself completely unable to say no to this stranger. And so she just allowed herself to be led, and the crowds parted for her. Her stomach dropped at the realisation that this was her escort. The mystery man who had led her to blue eyes, she wanted to scream to try to run. But her feet were moving without her consent, she was unable to do anything other than follow him. 

And then there he was, more glorious than he had ever been in any of her visions. Muscled and smirking. Blue Eyes. She came to a stop, coming face to face with him and watching as his lips moved over the familar words.

"Tell me your name." 

His compulsion was intoxicating. Completely different from the obligation that she had felt from the other man. It was like telling him her name was the most important thing she had ever had to do.

"Trixabelle. But everyone calls me Trixie, Sir." She wasn't sure where the Sir had come from, but it fell from her lips without her even thinking about it. His smirk seemed to grow and he held out a hand to her.

"Come here Trixabelle." Once again, his words were overwhelming and she moved without even really noticing it. As she moved toward her hand brushed his extended one, and her stomach lurched. Because suddenly his hands were everywhere, he was everywhere. His lips brushed against hers, as he pressed her back against silk sheets. His hands roughly parted her thighs as his lips sucked reminders of his presence into her neck. His hand clasped with hers as she laughed, she was sitting on his lap as he worked at a big oak desk. He whispered to her, held her. He was inside her. "You're alright babygirl."

It wasn't until hands shoved her down into the seat, that she managed to snap out of the never ending montage of what appeared to be their relationship that she had just seen. She shuddered, half the bar seemed to be looking at her and she was desperate to escape to leave. But she could feel his eyes on her, and she felt naked. It couldn't be true, that couldn't be the future. Yet she had seen it, clearer than she had seen anything else in her entire life. There had been no blurred lines, no warped images. As if nothing she had seen could be changed.

"Tell me exactly what just happened." Came his command, she attempted to bite her lip to fight the words that she could feel already forming on her tongue.

"I experienced a vision of the future." 

If he was shocked, he didn't show it. "Tell me what you saw."

"You and me together. We were in love."


	4. Confessions

Her mouth feels dry as he looks her up and down, her hands balled into fists. There’s no point trying to run, she’s seen the future. He is unavoidable. He doesn’t regard her for long before his eye line shifts and he looks over at the man from the pictures.

“Jasper, give her the needle.” 

Trixie looks startled, as the man beside her unwraps a surgical needle filled with a clear liquid and offers it to her. She shakes her head, already half sure of what will come next. She wants to beg him not to make her do this, whatever it is she doesn't want it in her body. But she knows that begging is useless and she tries to numb herself to the idea before the instruction comes.

“Trixabelle, inject your arm with that needle.”

She tries to reject his command her hand shaking, but she has no sway. No choice. She watches herself as if she is far away, as if this is just another vision of the worst possible scenario. See’s her hand grasp the needle and press the metal into her arm. And wonders what it is that he is poisoning her blood stream with. The effect is almost instant, her body feels weak and she’s swaying slightly. She moves towards him and everything starts to go black, there are hands on her and the last thing she hears before she slips away into unconsciousness is.

“Good girl Trixabelle.” 

 

For once in sleep there is only blackness. If she had any conciousness at all then she would have been grateful for that. As it is, she wakes on a plush couch. She wears no blindfold, and she lacks any bonds. But he doesn’t need tools to make people stay where they are. She sits up slowly her head pounding.

Trixie blinks, confused. Rubbing the back of her head. As she looks around the room a little she see’s her own face on the TV screen facing her. And she swallows. The black walls of the room, mean that the image is even more stark. She recognises the tape, even through her still slightly unfocused eyes she knows exactly what it is. And she wants to leave. The tape starts up and there are tears streaking down her cheeks on screen.

_“Please. Please. I can’t see anymore. Leave me alone. Please I want my Dad.”_

It’s the tapes they made when they were testing her, she’s only seen these once and she’s never made it all the way through. She’s sitting in the chair, her face swollen, her curls sticking to her face. Skin pale, with great bags under eyes. She barely looks human, if she hadn’t lived through it she would barely be able to believe that it was her at all.

_“Miss Banner. Focus. Look harder. I thought you wanted to help, peoples lives are at stake.”  
_

_“I can’t, please. You don’t understand.”  
_

_“Miss Banner, calm down. You just need to focus.”  
_

_“Please, please don’t make me.. I want to go home.”_

_"Miss Banner I'm going to have to insist that you calm down and focus on the task in hand."_

_"No. Please.. I just want to go home. I'm so tired. Please."_

The video pauses, the camera focused on her face. Slowly looks behind her, not wanting to look at herself any longer. He’s sat in a plush leather chair, behind a great oak desk seemingly completely uninterested in her suffering. 

“Where did you get that?” She asks quietly, tucking her knees up to her chin. Swallowing down bile as she looks at her alone hollow looking eyes on screen.

“I’ll ask the questions Trixabelle.” His tone is a warning one, and she shakes a little.

“I’m sorry.” She says quietly.

“Tell me why your abilities failed you here.” He demands and she wants to cry all over again.

“They pushed too hard, they wanted me to be able to iron out every detail and they didn’t take into account the emotional trauma, or physical exhaustion. They kept me in there for days at a time, I loose time when I’m in a vision.” She replied, the outfit that she is in make her feel so exposed and she hunches in on herself even further as if she can make herself disappear just by doing so. 

“Tell me why they sent you to meet Jasper in the bar.” 

“To be able to see I need to have met the person, or their acts are too difficult to predict. The better I know someone the easier it is to see.” She wonders what his weakness is, she’s never seen a power that didn’t have a downside though most of them were not as dramatic as hers.

“Tell me why you didn’t follow my commands when you were having a vision in the bar..” She is surprised by that question, she hadn’t heard him giving any commands.

“I don’t know.” She replies. “I didn’t hear you maybe?” She’s getting used to just following his commands. She doesn’t feel as intoxicated anymore, and the second response she offers up organically. Which he seems to realise since he raises an eyebrow at her.

“Tell me exactly what you saw in your vision at the bar.” 

“You and I kissing. Having sex..” She stops a little after the word kissing, she doesn’t want to tell him. She bites her lip hard but the words still spill out of her. “We were cuddling, you were holding me on your lap. You told me things were going to be alright.”


	5. Be Our Guest

The last time she was held somewhere against her will it was a lot less comfortable than this, here there is a woman who brings her tea and another woman who keeps offering her dresses. She turns down the tea the first time but she feels rude, and the  woman seems so kind. He told her not to look for his future, but she can’t help it when she sleeps. He’s too entwined with her. Last night was just a montage of them together, she woke up feeling like the places that he had touched her in her dream were still warm. Yet it never feels wrong, her visions are clouded with a golden haze of love. She can’t understand how they can possible get from him showing her the worst time of her life on video to playing happy families. To loosing her virginity to him. The asshole had seen her break down completely, was forcing her to live with him and yet she didn’t even know his name.

She thinks about Lia, wonders what she’s doing right now. Picking up the expensive clock on the table next to her she looks at the time. At least here she knows how much time has passed, it’s 8 o clock on a Wednesday. Lia won’t have had any dinner unless she got take out, but it’s Wednesday and Trixie always cooks on a Wednesday. Dan comes over, and Bruce is usually home. Sometimes Pepper and Tony come down, and they all have dinner together. But not tonight. Tonight she’ll be lucky if she even gets dinner. She’s nearly been missing for twenty four hours now, closing her eyes she looks for Lia. She’s inside of SHIELD, her face twisted downwards. Dan standing behind her, the room is as sharp as it would be if she was standing there herself. It’s like a sick movie playing before her eyes.

_“Where’s Trixie? She didn’t come home last night, she said she was working late here.”_

_“Miss Banner, your sister is working on a project that we’re not at liberty to speak about. If you could calm down, then we will be able to tell you a little more.”_

_“I don’t want to calm down. I want you to tell me where my sister is. Last time I didn’t see her you had locked us both up. Did you lock her up again?”  
_

_“Miss Banner of course we didn’t. If you would please just take a seat.”_

Her vision is clouded by her own anger for a moment, it’s a weakness. The once clear image, coloured with a red stain. It’s a family issue. She pulls herself out, and runs a hand through her hair. No meds. Her powers effect her anxiety at an accelerated rate, and she lies still on the bed with a sigh. She can see Lia suffering but she can’t help her, she wants to scream. I’m right here Lia, I’m okay. But she doesn’t have thought projection and her mind is messed up enough as it is without it. So she should probably be grateful. 

Lia and her have never talked about what happened when they were in those rooms, but she saw. She looked for Lias future while they held her, of course. She saw Lia, red hair thin and her face hallowed as they threw things at her. Tried to make her angry, anything to push her into using her powers. They had no idea, no clue what it did to Lia when she was forced to use her abilities. Sometimes Trixie can’t help but think about holding Lia, when she was shaking. Everyone thought about Lia as just a happy go lucky ball of fun, but Trixie has seen what Lia herself ignores.

The door unlocks very suddenly and she sits up, wondering if it’s someone come to offer her tea again. Instead it’s the man he called Jasper and she’s tempted to attempt to throw the clock right at his head. But she remembers the needle, and the woman who had smashed a glass into her own face. She doesn’t want anything else to happen to her. 

“Come with me.” Comes the command, but Trixie knows that it’s not like before. She doesn’t have to do as he says, it’s her sense of self preservation that has her crossing the room to follow him. Not any kind of superhuman ability. Internally she thinks, you could say please. And she looks up at him like she’s going to say it, but as always she holds her tongue.

Her and Lia were born with their abilities which is out of the ordinary, theirs are genetic. She’s heard rumours about a mind controller, who’s powers worked by omitting a virus but he’s long dead. And blue eyes isn’t controlling her mind, he didn’t make her want to do it. He just made her do it. He had made her inject herself and then he had told her that she was a good girl. How sick was that?

Jasper leads her into a dining room, and offers her a seat at the elaborate table. She sits nervously, and she waits. She doesn’t have to wait long, he enters soon after. Blue eyes catch brown. He’s effortlessly cool, like an old fashion movie star and for a moment she can’t help but appreciate him. Before she looks down.

“Good Evening Trixabelle.”

“Good Evening Sir.”

He raises his eyebrow at the word Sir, but doesn’t comment and so doesn’t give her the opportunity to ask for his name. 

“Tell me, are SHIELD looking for you.”

“I don’t know.” It’s true, her sister might be looking for her but she doesn’t know if SHIELD are. She hates the fact that he is forcing the answers from her. He could just ask,

“Have you looked to see?”

“No.” She blushes, he hadn’t compelled her but she had still answered honestly. It was then that someone entered the room bearing dinner, she looked at the pasta that was being put in front of her sadly. She was supposed to be making spaghetti today, Lia had wanted to try out the meatball trick from Lady and the Tramp with Dan. His portion was large and she nearly made a comment on the food, but her hand was shaking a little. She really needed to make sure that she limited the amount of visions that she had. With no meds here and no sympathetic parties she couldn't afford to start getting sick. It was a little awkward, the two of them just eating in silence. She glanced up from her pasta a few times, to see him shoving great fork fulls into his mouth. Slowly she continued eating hers, she was glad that he was feeding her. Though she tried not to think about anything too much, so as not to trigger a vision. "I cook." She said softly.

He looked up, clearly a little surprised that she had spoken without prompting. "Yeah."

"Mhm. It's one of my favourite things to do." Trixie really isn't sure why she's telling him this. Why she's trying to make conversation at all, and by his expression he doesn't either. But it seemed pointless to just sit in silence, he pushes another forkful into his mouth and she waits politely while she chews a mouthful of her own.

"What do you make." 

"Um lots of things, I lived in a lot of different places so I try and cook things from all over. I was going to make spaghetti tonight, my sister likes it." Trixie has decided that she much prefers having made her own conversation to being forced to give answers. 

"I like spaghetti." Is his only response and she nods.


	6. Shanghai

Lia is in a dark room, the only light coming from something that seems so very far away. Her skin is slightly ashy, and the light that usually rests in her eyes is gone. The walls are overly white, and there is a needle in her arm which is connected to a blood bag. The only sound in the room, is Lias heavy breathing and a dripping. An insessant dripping. 

“Why are you doing this?” She asks, her voice cracking. The woman standing across from her only smiles, the image flickers. Trixie tries harder, trying to look at the vision from the blondes perspective. It spins, and the blonde walks forward to flick the blood bag. The dripping sound is morphing, it’s more like a splatter than a drip, Lias eyes begin to droop from exhaustion as the spattering becomes clearer and it sounds like rain, the image flickers again. 

 

Lia and her are six and it’s raining outside. They’re in Shanghai. They’ve been here longer than they stay in most places, but there are a lot of people who need Daddy and they’re very sheltered here.

“Can you see when Daddy will get home?” Lia asks, her fingers squeezing Trixies a little more tightly as they sit together on the edge of the bed. Trixie has already tried looking but it was just a blur of faces and lights, Daddy told them to wait here until he was done with his patients. But it’s been an hour, and Trixie is really rather hungry. She’s already heard Lias stomach growl twice, so she knows that her elder sister feels the same way.

Trixie shakes her head. “No.. too many others.” She replies, and they sit in silence for a while. Listening to the rain, dripping into a bucket on the other side of the room. The lights are bright outside the window, they can see the main city in the distance. Over the top of the many shackled together rooftops. Trixie likes the view from out of the window, the laundry place from across the road has a pink neon sign and it casts a rather pretty glow into the puddles.

“Trixie?” Lia asks rather suddenly, and Trixie turns to face her. Taking in the curious expression and slightly nibbled lip that awaits her.   
“Yeah?”   
“Why can you see me when there are other people, but not Daddy?” Trixie smiles at Lias question and squeezes her sister's hand.   
“Because we’re twins silly. You’re just half of me.” Lia has always been the easiest, seeing her future is as natural as breathing. She looses the least time when she’s looking at Lia, and her visions are always the most vivid. It reminds Trixie of Lia herself, she never likes to commit too much time to anything and everything she does is done with such passion such motion. 

 

Shanghai fades into Peru, which fades into Poland. Which morphs into Kenya. But each place is just a background, every time she’s looking at Lias face.   
Trixie can’t remember which ones are memories and which are eventualites. She see’s broken arms, and games of chess, and that one time that their little school room fan broke on the hottest day of the year. Her most treasured moments blur together, and all she is left staring at is Lias ashen face as she flops down on the table. The blonde in the glasses removes the IV.

 

And Trixie wakes up screaming.

 

Touch is the most immediate thing. She’s being scooped up. There are hands on her face, but she doesn’t want to open her eyes. She can’t open her eyes, she’s too scared of what she might find.    
“I’m here. You’re alright. Babygirl look at me.” She shakes her head, still refusing to open her eyes.    
“No.. I can’t.” She whimpers, writhing a little. But he keeps steady hands, keeping her steady. Keeping her in the present.   
“Look at me!” He demands his voice dominant but there is no hint of his abilities with the statement. Never the less her eyes flicker open at his command, she finds him his most persuasive when he isn’t using his gift. Brown eyes meet blue, and he strokes over her cheek. It’s raining outside, she can hear it. She swallows as she tries not to think about Shanghai again. That’s what messed with her vision, the rain. She takes a deep breath.   
“I’m okay.” She repeats, it’s the system they’ve developed. Simple, but it does the job. He searches her face, she’ll never quite be able to get used to how it feels when those blue eyes sweep over her. Like he is combing over inch of her, if she looks away. She’ll have to talk about it, and she does everything she can to avoid talking about Lia. She wants to scream, Lia is in trouble. Something really bad is going to happen to her, please you have to let me help her. You have to let me go. But that wouldn’t do her sister any good.   
He doesn’t know about Lia. He knows she has a sister, but he doesn’t know that her sister has a talent and to her. That is for the best. Protecting Lia is always going to be her number one priority. They’re twins. Lia is half of her. He strokes a hand through her hair, and she lies against his chest. Skin to skin contact makes it so much easier to sleep, she can hear his breathing and for once she knows what’s real. He’s real. 

Selfishly she lets sleep take her, she’ll have time to feel guilty in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgive me the time jump, I know you hate them. Things will be explained, I swear. Soonish, maybe.


	7. Adam

Everyone has a weakness, it’s inescapable. Just because they’re superhumans, doesn’t mean that they’re not still human. Her first two weeks here had pushed her weakness almost to the point of breaking, he had been asking her to look for things. A lot of things. He had learned from the mistakes of the past. He had given her breaks, and asked her for less specifics and more general locations. But he had been missing a major factor and it had started to get worse than when they had held her that first time. Her hands had been shaking, she had spent nights up organising and cleaning her room. His powers could only do so much to stop a diease that was as incoded in her make up as her powers themselves. Her visions were just a mess of Lia looking for her, Lia walking into oncoming traffic. Her father hulking out. Dan trying to stop Lia from raging through SHEILD. No amount of food and rest could make her see, until she had finally told him about her pills. There had been tears streaking down her cheeks, her skin hot with a flush of embarassement. She wanted to shower, the sweat that was causing her hair to stick to her forehead made her feel dirty, And he demanded that she tell him exactly what was causing her to react like this. 

He had been angry and not in the way that she had expected. He wasn’t angry that she hadn’t told him because it had been preventing him from getting his answers. Though she suspected that was still a part of the equation. He had been angry that she had let herself get that bad, that she had deliberately witheld information that was so crurcial to her well being. And she had been surprised at how fast he had a cup of anxiety pills on the table in front of her. Commanding her to take them every morning, in a timely fashion. From what she was aware of super villians weren’t usually all that interested in their captives mental well being. They also didn’t tend to carry their captives to bed when they fell asleep on the sofa.

Trixie and Lias powers are genetic, something that is rare within SHIELD. Bruce figured that the genetic difference in their make up made them more prone to other disorders. Trixie to anxiety and then Lia to ADHD. Almost opposite ends of the spectrum.    
Adams weakness however is the truth, bending the will of others means that his own defenses are weakned. It’s why, he always makes sure that people don’t ask any questions while he’s using them. Well that’s her theory at least, and it was a theory that she developed pretty early on in her stay with him. She’s always been a curious soul, and the hours of questioning meant that sometimes she couldn’t hold her tongue. She had spent the first few days answering his questions without complaint, sometimes he didn’t even need to use his powers to have her spilling her guts. He had been very careful in that early time to make sure that he ordered her not to ask him any questions before he even started to ask her anything. But her compliance ovbiously took him by suprise. As the first week had come to a close, and they had regularly eaten dinner together she couldn’t help but let a few questions slip from her own lips as they talked. Just small things at first, things that she felt were harmless enough. Like his name. He hadn’t volunteered that, and she hadn’t thought that he would. But she hadn’t been too taken back, when after a few moments of ; what at the time she assumed to be deliberation he said.   
“Adam.”    
After that he had been more careful again, and another week went by before there was another incident. This time he had been showing her the tape again, with her face on screen she hadn’t been able to resist repeating her very first question.   
“Where did you get this?”   
“From one of the women who helped run the test. Trixabelle you will not ask me anymore questions.” He hissed furiously, banging on the table. This time however, her question only meant that he was more ruthless with the way that he treated her for the rest of the day. And she was not invited down for dinner that evening.   
The seemingly truthful answers happened every once in a while, sometimes during their day session and sometimes during dinner. At first she enjoyed it simply because, it felt like she had even a little bit of the power that he did. But after a while it was more about learning about him, he was starting to know almost everything that there was to know about her. Yet she knew almost nothing about him. He volunteered a little more information without manipulation over time, and so when she next tried something more conciously it had very different results.

 

“What were SHIELD taking blood samples for?”   
“They wanted to see if my powers worked the same as someone elses that they had on file… are your powers genetic?” She had grabbed her chance, by making sure that she didn’t finish her answer before asking the question. It was a dirty trick, and she knew it even then.    
“No.” For the merest of moments his face twitches with something that looks a little like discomfort. “I told you not to ask questions.” It’s not an order and so she jumps on him,   
“How did you get them?” His eyes narrow at her, and for a moment she thinks that her gamble hasn’t paid off.   
“It was a side effect the experimental drug that saved my life.” He snapped, his face like thunder. “You will not ask me anymore questions Trixabelle do you understand?”   
She felt the complusion deep within her, but she also felt a sense of shame. She didn’t know why, he had probed her for imformation on almost every walk of her life. But it was just something about the way that he was looking at her, that made her feel like what she had done was wrong. Before turning away from her, so that all she could see of him was the muscular outline of his back.   
“I’m sorry.. Sir.” She said quietly, her fingers gripping the edge of the table. “I.. I shouldn’t have asked.” He doesn’t do anything right away, she has no idea of his facial expression but from what she can tell he’s taking a while to decide what to do with her.   
“ Prove that you’re sorry.” He says after a long time, still not turning to face her. She swallows.   
“How?” She asks, she isn’t sure if she wants to know the answer. He could make her do anything that he wanted with a few words, what could he possibly want from her.   
“Let me punish you.” He replies, and she twitches. He’s never used that word before, usually when she displeases him he locks her in her room for a while. He’s never asked her to let him to do something that she will find less than pleasant to her. She thinks about it for a long moment, if she consents he could do anything to her. Yet it wasn’t like she was really giving him anymore power than he already had. Except that it was so much more power, if she said yes she was allowing this to happen to her. She was no longer a victim. She watches his back for a moment longer and then she lets out a soft little breath.   
“Okay.” Trixie says and her legs are shaking slightly. She’s no idea what’s going to come next. He turns and his expression is completely unreadable.   
“Bend over the desk, with your hands flat against the table and your cheek to the side.” He orders, that wasn’t what she was expecting. There is no complusion behind his words, she has complete control over whether or not she follows what he’s saying. And that is more terrifying than any of the horrible things that have ever happened to her. She stands on shaking legs, and carefully she bends over. Palms flat, the desk cold against her cheek. Listening she can hear his footsteps behind her, and she says still.    
“Why am I punishing you Trixabelle?” He asks, Trixie swallows a little.   
“Because I asked you a question, after you told me not to ask questions.” She replied, her thighs clenching as she wondered exactly what was coming next.   
“Brace yourself.” Is his only other comment, before he hits her. It hurts and she lets out a squeak of surprise. She’s used to talking hits in the ring, play ones more than anything. And she’s always fought with Lia, but they are evenly matched. His hand is bigger than her entire cheek, and she’s recieved more than one compliament on the street about the size of her ass. But she doesn’t tell him to stop, as she lies against the desk waiting for the next strike.

“Say thank you.” He tells her, as her knees shake a little.   
“Yes Sir.” She replies, inhaling louder than is really necessary just before the next strike hits her. “Thank you Sir.” She manages to whimper, before his hand is crashing down on her again. They repeat the process until there are tears streaking down her cheeks and she can barely choke out her thank yous. Finally he moves away from her, and she lies still soft sobs leaving her.   
“It’s alright now Trixabelle. I forgive you.” He says, Trixie breathes heavily. Her chest heaving. “You were a good girl. It’s over now.” He promises, and she believes him. Sniffling as carefully he puts a hand underneath her body and lifts. It’s reminiscent of one of her visions, the way she feels about his touch in that moment. She needs him, she’s clinging to him as he carries her through to a room she’s never been in before. All she wants is his hands on her, the words he is whispering in her ear, the way he makes her feel in that moment. And she lets herself fall asleep there, with his arms around her. With no demands, she has melted completely and for once she sleeps easy and as far as she knows she doesn’t dream.


	8. Adam Part 2

When Trixie finally wakes the next morning, she realises that she can’t remember the last time that she slept that well. No dreams, no visions. The satisfaction is followed by guilt, she should feel violated. She should feel ashamed of herself for allowing him to touch her like that, yet the disgust doesn’t come. She feels guilty about what she did, but she can’t go back and imagine not doing it all over again.    
He moves first, flipping the blanket up. She’s still wearing the same clothes that she was the night before, which is a relief. Internally she shudders at the things that he could have done to her while she was vulnerable like this. Her ass stings, she’s taken knock downs before but she suspects to be stinging this much. Her ass must be a delicate shade of blue right now. She listens to him running the tap, and takes the opportunity to have a look around the room that she’s in. It’s black, and she wonders for a moment if that’s like.. his colour. There are many things anywhere that say a lot about him, but then him being him doesn’t say that much about him either. Trixie isn’t sure what she’s supposed to do as she listens to the shower run, she supposes this is how girls feel after a one night stand. Though most one night stands are with strangers, and not with psychotic, will power manipulators who could make you stab yourself at any time.    
The shower cuts out, and she swallows slightly. He was kind yesterday, but anyone can be charming when they want to be. He emerges in nothing but a pair of sweatpants, and she almost gasps. His physique is undeniably impressive, and it could rival almost every single one of the men she’s known at SHIELD. She had planned to pretend to be asleep when he came in, but he caught her off guard and now her eyes are wide open.   
“Good-good morning.” She tries, attempting to sit up and then wincing as she put pressure on her ass.

“Turn over.” Is his response, though there is no compulsion behind it. So when she does, it is done slowly and with the attention of elbowing him in the nose should he try anything. Yes he could technically still force her, but he would at least be aware that she wasn’t willing. He flips up her skirt, and she flinches ready to strike. But he places a jar down in front of her, reaching out she looks at it.    
“For the bruises.” She thinks about that for a moment, and then slowly lies back down. She can feel the shadow of his mass over her, and she’s tense right up until he’s actually rubbing the cream in. She could have asked to do it herself, he didn’t offer her the option but there was nothing stopping her. Yet she lay still as he touched her, not all together unsettled at the sensation.    
When he was satisfied he sat back, and she didn’t move. Unsure of where to go next.   
“You cook?” He asked, and she couldn’t help but look back at him.   
“Oh um.. yes.” She replied, remembering that had been the first thing that she had volunteered about herself without prompt.   
“Do not put anything in the food that could harm me in any way. Now go and make breakfast.” He instructed, waving his hand towards the door. First part compulsion, second part just supported by a commanding tone. It works though, in the kitchen she finds herself following a familiar rhythm. To her surprise the place is empty but very well stocked, she’s often wondered how he has managed to have such a large house in New York. Having never yet been exposed to what is outside the window. But in the kitchen she see’s an expansive of green that just wouldn’t be possible in her home town. And so she is faced with the hard realisation that she is far from Lia, for some reason she had never considered that he might have taken her out of her hometown. It had been foolish of her not to consider that option, but childishly she had thought that he wouldn’t be able to for some reason. Instead of dwelling on it. She focuses on breakfast, It feels nice to have pans in her hand again. She finds the ingredients for a full english and so she makes it, and pancakes too, and then waffles just because she’s showing off a little. There is really no need for quite this much food in theory, but then again she has seen how big his usual portions are. She can’t find any fruit at all for a fruit salad, which annoys her but she’s still proud of what she manages to put together. She doesn’t make a smiley face out of the eggs and bacon like she does for Lia, somehow she feels like that isn’t his breakfast style.

When she’s done she slowly carries the plates through into the dining room, laying them out in a large spread. She’s just putting the condiments on the table, when he enters. One eyebrow raised at the spread, she doesn’t usually eat breakfast with him and for a moment she worries that he doesn’t like it. Instead he plops himself down, and immediately starts eating. Slowly she sits, flinching a little from the burn that she’s feeling and then follows his example, she thinks she sees the corners of his mouth turn up a little.   
“This is good, it pleases me.” He tells her after a long while, and she looks up from her pancakes with a soft smile.   
“I’m glad you like it.” She replies, and finds that her statement is true. She’s glad he likes it, Blue Eyes looks at her and she watches him for a moment. He’s reading her, trying to watch her for any kind of exterior motive. But she’s clean, and he shrugs. Things are quiet again until a tray is brought in with her anxiety medication, she takes it without complaint. When breakfast is over, she starts to get up to start clearing things away.   
“Don’t.”   
“But I..”   
“I said don’t Trixabelle.”   
Someone else moves forward to take the plates, and she sits uneasily as what remains of her cooking is cleared from the table. Watching him, she never usually see’s him in the mornings she’s not sure what happens next.   
“You’re free to return to your room until this afternoon.” He tells her, and she starts to get up to leave.  “How are you at sandwiches?” He asks.   
“I’m a New Yorker. I make great sandwiches.” Trixie replies, and she swears that he almost smiles.   
“We’ll see.” Is his only retort, and then she scarpers before she does something stupid like think that she might actually like being around him.

 

Lunch is a success, and so she makes dinner. And so it repeats. It turns out he’s wary of anything that isn’t Italian, and fruit is forbidden. When she argued with him about the virtues of fruit, he took the wooden spoon she was brandishing and made her hold it between her teeth while he punished her. Then he told her she was forgiven and carried her to bed, and she enjoyed the same dreamless sleep as before. She doesn’t enjoy the pain, she thinks she could if he didn’t hit her so hard. But it’s the submission she enjoys, she never calls him Adam. And he never makes her. She doesn’t want to displease him, but she does want the reassurance afterwards. She wants the strong arms and the petting. She wants everything that she saw in those visions. She’s not stupid, Trixie is aware of BDSM. Her and Lia giggled their way through Fifty Shades of Grey, and she’ll admit to having read some questionable Harry Potter fanfiction in her time. But she’s never thought about it like this. Never actually imagined being made to count as his palm slapped against her. The taste of the wooden spoon strange in her mouth.

 

She’s just putting a bowl of spanish chicken on the table when he comes into the dining room, she looks up. Startled.   
“Oh sorry. I wasn’t expecting you yet.” She says, dipping her head a little.   
“I’m leaving for a short while. You are free to roam about the house and the garden but you will not leave the property. You will not enter my office, or my bedroom. You will not attempt to escape or attempt to plan an escape. You will hurt no one in this building and that includes yourself. If you are a good girl in my absence then there will be a reward upon my return. Do not search for my future, Jaspers or that of any member of SHIELD.”   
The compulsion makes her knees shake a little, he hasn’t been this forceful with her in a long while.   
“How long will you be gone for?” She asks without thinking, and he scowls.   
“I don’t know. Trixabelle what have I told you about questions.”   
“Sorry.. I wasn’t thinking… I’ll be a good girl.” She promises, and he nods and turns back towards the door. She looks down at the chicken, unsure of what to do now.   
“Trixabelle.” Trixie looks up, nibbling her lip a little.   
“I’m sorry about dinner.” He mutters and then leaves the room.    
Blue Eyes has never been a fan of leftovers, but the chicken lasts her a few days. She finds herself restless with only herself for company. His people linger, but they have obviously been instructed not to speak too much to her. So she’s lonely for the most part. Though Trixie keeps herself busy exploring parts of the house that she had been barred from before, and most importantly the garden. The place is massive, like a mansion from a story book. And she combs every inch of it, day by day.    
Her days might be busy, but her nights are restless. With Lia and Dan barred to her by his commands she sees her own future before it happens, making it slightly less exciting when she discovers a room that she already explored in her dreams. The longer he’s gone, the more restless she feels. It’s been a week when she discovers a cupboard, she hadn’t noticed it before and it has a lock on it. Remembering her promise to be a good girl, she leaves it well alone. But in night, she explores. 

 

You can’t forget some images, and what she would have discovered should she have chosen to break the lock is one of those. At first the contents just locked as if it were a collection of boring files, most of them just tax receipts for people she had never heard of. Healthcare bills. Insurance numbers. Until she looked more closely at the bills. They were for Adam, extensive plastic surgery. Including facial reconstruction, doctors notes. Then lab reports.   
Her stomach drops, she recognises the lay out. The test coding. She tears her way to the bottom of the box.    
‘Weapon X Revival Scheme’ There is isn’t much, but she can fill in the gaps. They had tried to make another Steve Rogers, who they were. She didn’t know, but she recognised lab testing when she saw it. She had heard about spin off projects Kogslove and the like. People who wanted to produce more super soldiers more weapons. But Captain America couldn’t control peoples minds, there had to be more. There had to be. The boxes don’t yield anything else that is useful. But what she does find is a picture, a picture that she holds for a very long time even as the vision begins to tremble and become more like static. The image is burned into her mind, of an Adam who is not massive and not scowling. But an Adam who is smiling, and skinny.

  
And when Trixie wakes from the vision, she finds that she is crying. But she can’t for the life of her imagine why.


	9. Adam Part 3

She starts to worry about him once he’s been gone nine days, the food is replenished daily. So it’s not like she’s going to starve or anything, she’s no real reason to hope for his return. But she just wonders if he’s okay. He could have been killed, or captured, or he could just leave her here. He might be off sleeping with someone, he could have a girlfriend. These are all things that shouldn’t bother her. She should hope that someone has killed them and is coming to rescue her. She should pray that someone is distracting him. She doesn’t know anything about him really, there is no reason for her to hope that he comes back soon. No reason for the knot in her stomach to grow bigger every day. 

She takes to waiting at the bottom of the stairs after a while, it’s a sad habit to develop. But she feels like if she waits then he might just appear. When two weeks pass with no sign of him, she begins to believe that he has forgotten her and she starts to try and look for him. He told her not to, but he has been away for a long time. While he hadn’t wanted her to look at the time while his plan was going well. Trixie feels like he might actually be very grateful for her looking if it would save his life. Though how she could save his life when she is very much stuck in the confines of these walls, is a little bit of a stretch. Trixie wonders if she could induce a vision, she knows that true visions can override his command and she wants that. She wants solid proof that he’s still out there wandering the streets in some capacity. Maybe if she was bad he would come back. There is a part of her that believes if she broke the rules he would return to her. To rain his wrath down upon her, she would take the smacks over the silence.

She’s sleeps worse than ever, her dreams haunted by the very worst that could happen. Then she wakes curled up alone, which only increases the hollow feeling that she has started to feel. Some days she wonders if she is alone in the world now, the people who linger in the house seem more like funiture than real people. They don’t talk to her, and she almost feels like she’s invisible. She misses Lia more than ever, every time she makes eggs she ends up making bacon too even though she doesn’t eat it. Just so that she can arrange it in a smiley face and try to cling onto the way that Lias face still lights up. Even though she’s been doing the same thing for her now for years. She has nothing to distract her, now that she has combed the entire house and grounds besides rooms that are locked and those ones that are forbidden. So eventually she decides that she can’t be sad anymore, she has to do something. Anything.    
Adams freezer is basically empty, and so she cooks. Cooks and cooks, until the whole thing is filled with snacks and emergency meals all clearly labelled and marked. She spends almost twenty four hours a day making meals until she realises there is nothing more to do. The anxiety pills still come steady every morning, and nobody seems to notice that she is going utterly insane. It doesn’t matter the medication, she is so very lonely. 

 

When the door finally opens, she’s just sitting at the bottom of the steps fiddling with a flower that she picked from the garden. When she see’s that it’s him, she stands up and her instinct is to run to him. To cling to him. Then she halts herself, what on earth is she doing. Stockholm Syndrome much. So she stands there, frozen. He looks more tired than she’s ever seen him, and so nervously she walks towards him.   
“You’re back.” She says after a long moment, watching his face. Slowly he reaches down and pulls at a stray curl that she had tucked behind her ear. Blue eyes watching as the curl sprang back.    
“Can you make dinner?” He asks, moving past her and towards the stairs that she had previously been sat on. She nods, turning around to watch him as he goes. Wondering if that’s really all he has to say to her after being gone for so long. The fact that he asends the stairs and leaves her there, says that it is.

 

Dinner is a quiet affair, he tells her nothing of his trip and she knows better than to ask for any answers. So instead she entertains him with tales of her exploits to the garden, and the freezer full of food. He rumbles his approval, but he looks tired. She’s never seen him look anything other than completely composed, Trixie wants to ask him if he’s okay but somehow she doesn’t think that would be well recieved. So they retire after dinner with very little said, and despite his reapperance Trixie still feels lonely.

 

The rage follows her to bed, and it’s raining outside. She is restless right up until the moment that she is consumed by a true vision for the first time in a long while. Adam takes his seat behind his desk, the storm raging outside the window. His eyes focused on the same TV screen where he once played her torment. Instead the much smaller version of himself is sitting in a chair, sweating pouring down his chin. The image flickers a little, but it stays in tact.   
“Mr Beiste, how do you feel today?”   
There’s no answer from the blonde on the screen, but from what Trixie can tell he doesn’t feel good to say the least.   
“Mr Beiste we need you to answer to be able to get the results required to judge how this batch is effecting you.” Adam still doesn’t answer and the screen flips to a much buffer looking Adam this time cuffed down to the seat.    
“L-” Just as he starts to speak to Trixies shock, a man that she hadn’t noticed before punched him. The noise he ommits makes her feel sick.    
“S-” Adam starts again, and there is a sick crack as the sound of his nose breaking echoes around the room.    
“Ge-” He tries a third time, just as the guys fist connects with his already crushed nose. Furiously Adam spits the blood building up in his mouth towards the camera.

“The physical violent seems to prevent him from being able to form any mental connection. If we were to up the dose of the serum the likeihood is he would be strong enough to still form a connection while under torture.”    
“Sir, he isn’t controllable. He’s far too unpreictable to continue as a test subject.”   
“He is the only one who has had a postive reaction to the serum.”   
Trixie watches as Adam starts to stir, his bloodied face staring directly into the lens of the camera. 

“They’re looking for a reason to cut our funding as it is.. we cannot present him as a test subject.”   
“Remo-” As fast as Adam seemed to have recovered, the guy standing beside him let a fist connect with his jaw. There was another sickening crack, and Trixie jolted upright in bed. 

  
Pulling the blankets tight around her body she attempted to shake off the feeling off the image of Adams bloodied face staring right at her, to stop similar images of Lia from creeping back into her brain. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t let herself think about it. Pressing her hands over her ears she rocked a little. Not real. Not real. But she can’t, she can’t stop. The reminders of Lia screaming in pain are just behind her eyelids and she’s crying. Fighting to keep her eyes open and not blink. Everything is just a swell of the crack of Adams nose breaking, the lifeless look in Lias eyes as a man crept his hand up her leg, and that same piece of black glass that she had stared at for so long. 


	10. Adam Part 3

The next morning when she’s waiting for him to come down to breakfast she formulates an idea in her head, she’ll just ask him if she can look for her sister's future. She doesn’t have to say that Lia has anything to do with SHIELD, she’ll just seem like a woman concerned for her sisters well being. Resting her hands on the edge of the counter, she tries to keep her focus off last night. She just had to know that Lia was safe, she had to be able see it for herself.The door to the dining room opens, but it’s only Jasper and she sighs. Trying to feel less tense.    
“He’ll have breakfast in his study, you’ll be joining him up there.” He announces, the compulsion annoys Trixie. There is no need for Jasper to intoxicate her like that, but she finds herself nodding and following him up the stairs. At the door, she turns.   
“You really don’t have to do that. Waste of your abilities really.” She snapped, before quickly ducking into the office. She’s never been quite that brave before, but she’s tired of being quiet. Tired of being shoved from place to place. This wasn’t what it was supposed to be like, being a hero. He’s standing with his back to her, and she moves forward carrying the tray.    
“There’s more stuff downstairs but.. I couldn’t fit it on the tray.” Trixie says quietly, unsure of what else to do. He turns to face her, and she has to swallow the image of him with blood dripping down his face. It’s harder to try and find hatred now, she’s looking at him and she’s seeing the boy on the tape. Shaking her head slightly she waits for some kind of signal on what to do next. And after receiving none she puts the tray down on the desk.   
“Tell me why you were crying last night.” He says, and she can almost feel the blood drain from her face. She’s shaking her head, trying everything in her power to fight against the words already spilling from her lips.   
“I had a vision of you watching a tape of yourself. It made me think about what they did to me.” She chokes out, her hands white on the table from trying to resist. She’s never tried that hard before. Usually she lets the answers go at this point, but this one weighs far too much. And she’s still shaking her head long after the words fill the room.   
“I told you not to look for my future.”   
“I wasn’t looking for anything. Your powers they.. they don’t work on true visions. I didn’t mean to.” She says, though it sounds almost like she is begging. He regards her for a long moment.    
“Sit.” He instructs, and she does so, heavily. Though not through compulsion. “Tell me exactly what you saw.” She’s surprised that there is no compulsion behind her words. So with that trust she decides that she will be completely honest.   
“You were younger, much younger and skinnier and someone was asking you about how you were feeling. Then you were older and they were, stopping you from speaking by hitting you. They said that you were apart of a super soldier program, and that you had taken to the drugs. But that you were an unpredictable test subject.” Trixie replied, fiddling with the edge of her skirt and watching him. He seemed to take a long moment to process that information, and she wonders if this might be the end for her.   
“Why did SHIELD release you from the testing that they were conducting?” He asked, and she swallowed. At least she wasn’t dead yet.   
“ My father made them on ethical grounds. What they were doing to me wasn’t what I had consented to and I was under the age of eighteen, They had no ground to hold me there without my parents consent.”Trixie replied, shifting in her seat. She had no idea why she was telling the truth, despite the lack of force behind his words. But she felt that she owed him that much. She had intruded on something that was obviously personal and that she wouldn’t have wanted anyone to see. 

“You’re dismissed. I won’t be needing lunch.” Was the only response that she received, she wanted to argue but. She didn’t want to intrude anymore than she already had. 

 

His dinner was taken from her hands by an unnamed staff member, and she spent an uneasy night trying not to fall asleep. Outside it was raining again, and the breath moments that she did sleep she dreamed of Shanghai again. Only this time she doesn’t want to wake up, when she does find the sun leaking in through the curtains in the morning. She screws her eyes shut in an attempt to hold onto the feeling of Lias hand in hers and the sound of the rain outside the window. She spends a few more days having the staff take the meals from her, and she starts to feel more and more like she is just another silent member of staff. Instead of dreading sleep. now she looks forward to it. It’s the only time that she gets to see Lia. This rhythm of feeling more awake when she’s asleep goes on until one night she closes her eyes and she’s back in Adams office. She tries desperately to wake herself, trying to shake the image from her head. But she finds herself glued in place. A bloodied beaten Adam is on the screen, though now he’s at the size she knows him. Muscular and taut he sits in the chair, with large cuts sliced into his skin. They ooze blood as he sits with his head bowed. This time there are guards that stand either side of him, both wielding large metal poles. The restraints holding him are considerably larger this time.    
“Are you sure that he is contained?” Asks the same nervous voice as before.   
“Yes he doesn’t heal fast enough for the pain to allow him to use his powers.” Adam remains slumped, though Trixie watches as the end of his fingers twitch slightly.   
“He’s contained for now.. but there’s no way that we can consider him in any way useable in the field.”   
“No. But once we have a full set of test results, his data can be used to instruct us on the next subject. He will of course have to be terminated.”   
“Terminated? Is that legal?”   
“He’s attacked members of staff and killed a guard. It will be reasonable force.”

“That.. that..”   
“Real-” Adam speaks in a rasp, as if he almost has no voice at all. Quickly one of the guards either side of him rams the metal pole into one of the open wounds. Adam's face screws up in pain. But he opens his eyes and looked up, blooded face menacing.   
“Take that pole-” Both guards are on him now, trying to stop him. “Take that pole and push it through your stomach. Doctor why don’t you drop your gun, and kneel on the floor.” He says, and there is a clatter as off screen the gun goes clattering to the floor. With pale faces, both guards raise the poles and with a sick squelch and a splatter of blood they fall onto their poles. If Trixie had been awake she would have screamed at the sight of the blood oozing onto the floor.   
“Don’t run. Come here, and let me out of these.” Adam orders and one of the men moved forward and opened the contraption Adam was being held on. No sooner was Adam free he was choking him. The guy gasped for air, and Adam pulled the security badge from around his neck. And then brought his head crashing down on the edge of the chair. Creating a sick cracking sound, there was a wail from the Doctor and Adam moved off camera. Trixie couldn’t see what happened next but if the screaming was anything to go by. It wasn’t pleasant.

When her eyes fluttered open, she had to clamp her hand over her mouth to stop the sobbing that was building up in her chest. As she sat there rocking backwards and forwards the door opened, and he was standing there in the doorway.   
“Come here.”


	11. Lia

She feels exposed as she crosses the room and follows him back to the door of his. She cannot enter, his order still stands and so she halts for a moment. And he turns to her. “You may enter my bedroom or office if I am accompanying you.” He tells her and Trixie nods, following him through into the cool darkness of the room.   
“Sit on the bed.” She’s starting to get used to this game that they’re playing of how far she will obey him without him using his powers. She sits down slowly, arranging the pyjamas she’s wearing. Trying to feel a little less exposed. “I know what you just saw, I showed you. So now you know.” He says firmly, and she feels a little more relaxed. She hates that she intruded on things that she shouldn’t have seen the first time. Even though he did it to her, she still feels like the content of that tape was something that belonged to him and him alone. Though she can’t see why he wanted her to see. This is the first time he has spoken to her since she saw the last tape, that kind of reaction had made her less than confident that he was going to be sharing more of his private business with her.   
“I’m sorry that happened to you.” Is the first thing that she can think of to say, because she is sorry. Watching him bloodied and beaten hadn’t been something that she had wanted to see. She doesn’t care if he has done terrible things since, he’s never done anything terrible to her. And if he had, could she really blame him for hating the people that had done that to him? If he had thought she was involved in what had happened to him, Trixie thinks that he would probably have every right to want revenge. His face pulls down into a frown for a moment, but she doesn’t feel like she could have said anything different.    
“What happened to you when they were testing on you Trixabelle?” He asks, which doesn’t answer any of the millions of questions that she has or explain the frown that had crossed his face only a few minutes ago. But she feels like it’s only fair if she tells him.   
“Some of the same, they wanted to see if I could see things while under physical duress. They wanted to know how sleep affected my visions, wanted to know how I would fair with a lack of food and water. And under also emotional distress. They tortured me… just like they did to you.” She says it simply, she has never been as frank about any of it before. Usually if her and Lia ever talk about what happened it is in a very abstract way, like it was a bad dream that happened long ago. And the word torture is something that they’ve never dared use to describe their experiences.    
“So why work for them. If they did that to you.” He asks, that wasn’t a question that she had been expecting. Though it’s one that perhaps she should have asked herself a long time ago. Why was she still at SHIELD? Because her sister was, because her father was? Or because she was still holding onto the idea that maybe some day she could be a hero?   
“Because it’s the right thing to do.” She replied, though she wasn’t sure if she believed that anymore. There were too many tapes. Would they have terminated her and Lia when they had outlived their usefulness? She couldn’t say that she didn’t think that it wouldn’t have crossed their minds.   
“The right thing to do for them. Or the right thing to do for you.” His gaze is unavoidable, those blue eyes still haunt her. Long after he had become more than just a dream   
“That’s not supposed to matter when you’re a hero.” She says in a very small voice, she doesn’t know why he cares and the small brunette doesn’t really know what he’s looking for her to say.    
“Is that what you want. To be a hero.”    
“I suppose so.”   
“Why.” He’s not giving her any room to breathe, any room to look away and Trixie feels overwhelmed. She’s scrambling for a justification.   
“I.. I want to make my family proud.. to help people.”    
He regards her for a long moment, one hand reaching down and tugging on one of the many loose curls around her face. Trixie is breathing more heavily than she would like to, her chest rising and falling.   
“Tell me how you’re feeling right now.”   
“I’m nervous.”   
“Why.”   
“Because I don’t know what you want from me.”   
“Tell me what you want Trixabelle.”   
“I want you to kiss me. Please.” He chuckles darkly, and she’s not sure if he compelled her or whether her mouth just let what she was thinking slip out. But it doesn’t matter when he pulls her up to kiss him. It’s everything that she remembered in her vision. She’s not sure when he lifted her off her feet, but when he finally breaks away from her she realises quite how far off the ground she is. A blush forming on her cheeks, right now she doesn’t have time to worry about whether what she’s doing is right or wrong. Slowly he puts her down, Trixie is almost disappointed but she doesn’t protest.

“Go to bed Trixabelle. I’ll see you tomorrow for breakfast.”   
The compulsion is somewhat comforting, with no choice she doesn’t have space to argue. She can pretend almost that the kiss was something she couldn’t control. That she didn’t ask for either. Though as she curls into a ball in her bedroom, she knows that it’s not what a hero would have done.

  
She’s a smidgen later for breakfast than usual, as she makes her way towards the kitchen and out of the corner of her eye she sees a newspaper. With no member of staff coming to pick it up, Trixie hurried over and picked it up. It’s been so long since she had any kind of connection with the outside. Taking it through into the kitchen, Trixie scanned the front page. It was a national newspaper so unfortunately there was no indication as to where she was, however as she devoured the pages. She saw an article that made her breath catch in the back of her throat, it was Lia. Her arm linked with Dans, she looked pale and worried. Pale and Worried but at least she was alive. Trixie bit her lip stroking over her sisters face. It was so good to see her, just to know that Lia was out there and that she was okay. Looking around for a moment Trixie folded the sheet from the paper and slopped it into her bra. The article hadn’t said anything much, other than that Lia and Dan had been spotted out in New York and that they had been going out for a significant amount of time. But the sense of relief that Lia was out there somewhere was almost overwhelming, though it made Trixies heart ache. She wanted to be with Lia, and she wanted to be with her now. Taking deep breaths, Trixie had to blink back the tears that were forming. How many days had it been since she had last been allowed to search for what was happening to her sister. Never before in her life, had she gone a day without waking up and checking what the future had in store for Lia. Even during the worst days of her life she had at least had the comfort of being able to see what was going on, even if it wasn’t a pleasant sight to see. Now she was just blind, and very suddenly she felt that loss. Sniffing, Trixie pulled herself together. Wiping away the few tears that had escaped from her eyes, and replacing the paper. She had to keep quiet about Lia, she couldn’t afford to fall to pieces and have him discover anything about her. That was the one thing that she could do to help her sister now. Keep her out of whatever it was that was going on between her and Adam. Though on her plate when she carried them through, she arranged her eggs and bacon to make a smiley face and wondered if somewhere Lia was doing the same.


	12. Fade to Black

The last time she went this long without speaking to Lia, she was angry with her. Out of all her days in that dark room and SHIELD none of them compared to the fear that she felt on the worst day of her life. It’s strange to think how much younger she was then, yet the sheer terror that had filled her body when she had seen Lia disappear would never leave Trixies mind. It was one thing to see Lia suffer, to see Lia break. But Trixie didn’t want to exist in a world where there was no Lia. Yet she had seen it, watched Lia put her hand on herself and rip herself out of Trixies world.    
Lia had been so angry when Trixie had yanked her hand away from herself, but Trixie had nearly slapped her. So angry that she could do that, that she would even think about it. But before Trixie could say anything it had been Lia turning with anger in her eyes.   
“Why would you do that?”   
“You were hurting yourself.”   
“You could have gotten hurt.”   
“I saw you disappear!”   
“And I bet there was a version where you disappeared!”   
Then had come the long months of tension and silence, neither sister willing to budge. Right up until the day came when Trixie was to leave for boarding school. Then despite the tension that had still lingered between the two of them, they had squeezed each other tight as the time came to leave Trixie behind in her new room. That was it, they would never leave one another without saying a proper goodbye. Without knowing when they were going to see one another next, it didn’t matter how long she had to think about it Trixie couldn’t get used to the idea that she might never see her sister again. 

 

At dinner that evening, she puts down her fork after only a few bites and looks up at him. He hasn’t compelled her to do anything today, so she feels no guilt when she asks.   
“Did you ever.. you know. Want to be a hero?” He looks up at her for a split second.   
“No.”   
“But you signed up to a super soilder program, wasn’t it so you could be like Captain America?”    
“No.”   
“Oh.”   
“I’m not a good person Trixabelle. You should be scared of me.” When he says it, it’s not like in the movies when Edward Cullen is telling Bella. He says it with a kind of malice that makes her stomach clench, and for a moment she sees the man who forced those men to fall on their own poles. Things aren’t like in fairy tales where people are either good or evil, everyone is their own special brand of complex. As much as she wants think that there are heroes and there are villains, she’s seen what the ‘good’ side is willing to do. She doesn’t want to know what evil is willing to do to get it’s own day. She sits back in her chair, and finds herself wondering all over again why she decided to kiss him. Was it because she thought he was like her, a boy who wanted to be a hero who had been tricked and used. Or was it because she had grown to like him for the man that she had known while she had been trapped here?   
“Why am I still alive? I mean.. why am I still here..?” She asks, it’s something that she pondered for so long while he was gone. Visions of the future aside, what other reason could he possibly still have for keeping her. He rarely used her gift these days, in fact her cooking skills had found more of a place in his home than her ability had. And she was pretty sure that there were plenty of girls who could cook, that he could either compel or pay to do the same job. 

“Because I say so.” Watching him she starts to ask another question, but he gives her a warning look. “How many times do I have to tell you about asking me questions Trixabelle. My office after dinner.”    
“Yes Sir.”    
“Try Master.”   
“Yes Master.”   
  


There’s a change in tone as they finish dinner, she suddenly feels very meek and very small. And he barely looks at her, as she exits the room after she’s finished. It’s that feeling again, just as she was pulling away to try and really think about why she wants him. There’s that softness in her, that wants his approval. That feels guilty for trying to push him for answers. She looks at the desk and waits, wondering what awaits her. She doesn’t hear him, until he’s already closing the door behind himself. But she doesn’t dare look back.   
“Bend over the desk Trixabelle.” Her heart is hammering again, because they’re going in circles. She’s been here before, and she starts to wonder if she will always end up bent over his desk taking his hits because she wants to.    
“Yes Master.” That’s the new part, she’s allowing him some kind of ownership over her. At this point she’s ready to not only stop asking him questions. But also to stop asking herself questions.    
“Count. Since this is the fifth time I’ve had to correct you on this, we’ll go to fifty.” He informs her, and she’s barely gotten the words. ‘Yes Master’ Out of her mouth, before the first hit begins. She counts, and it hurts. But she’s got a steady grip on herself, until the table melts away from in front of her and instead she’s looking at Dan and Bruce standing in her kitchen.   
“Where is she now?” Her Dad asks, he looks so very tired and Trixies heart aches a little.   
“I made her go to bed, she fought me pretty hard. But she’s so tired that in the end she gave up, she’s sleeping now.” Dan replies, leaning against the door frame. Trixie tries to move the vision, to go through the door into Lias room. To check on her sister, but the image blurs at the edges and past the kitchen she can see only white. Lia isn’t a part of the vision she’s being shown and she can’t reach her, it doesn’t matter how hard she tries. Trixie can’t push past her father and Dan, they remain in focus.   
“Is there nothing? Have SHIELD really not found a trace of her?” Dan asks, she missed some of the conversation but she can guess what they’re talking about.   
“They claim to have no leads, and that she’s on a mission. But I think we’re all past believing that.” Bruce replies, with a sigh. “With her visions, if she was really simply on a mission then she would have called. Trixie would never let Lia go through this kind of emotional distress.” Dan nodded and it made Trixie happy to know that they didn’t believe that she would just disappear on them like that.    
“My Dad is doing the best he can to look for her, but she’s just vanished. Her cell phone turning up in Texas is the last trace on her, that we have. If Lia doesn’t take a break from looking for her she’s going to get sick.”   
“You think that I can stop her?” Bruce asked, Trixie could feel the edges of the vision starting to close in and she tried to hold onto it. Gritting her teeth and trying to smooth it back out, but it was too late. And she found herself panting, a tear streaking down her cheek as she came back to herself. Looking over her shoulder, Adam had stood back from her.    
“I’m sor-”   
“Don’t.” He warned her raising a hand. “What did you see?”   
“My Dad talking about me being missing with my friend Dan.” She replied, keeping her hands on the desk unsure if she was allowed to move them.    
“Come away from the desk and look at me.” Carefully she did so, turning around and folding her hands behind her back. “Do you feel that you are able to continue your punishment from 21?” Trixie took a deep breath and thought about his question, seeing her Dad and hearing about Lia had made her a little unsteady. But it wasn’t as if she didn’t usually cry when he spanked her, so she saw no reason why.   
“Yes Master.” She decided, biting down on her lip.   
“Resume your position then.” He instructed and she did so, taking the rest of her punishment with slightly choked numbers falling from her mouth. She had never been more grateful to be picked up before in her life than at the end of the smacks. His arms were the only thing she wanted once it was all over.    
“You’re alright Babygirl, I forgive you. You’re a good girl.” All sounded like the best news she’d ever heard. It would have been easy after seeing her house with her family in to have immediately distanced herself from him. But instead it only made her want to cling tighter to have him closer. She didn’t want to go back to the days of loneliness. When all she had to think about was how much she missed Lia. So when he takes her to his bed, instead of feeling guilty all Trixie can do is look forward to the blackness that sleeping with him brings. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a bit of a filler, but you need a few of those sometimes


	13. A Black Bow

  
Once a few months after Bruce freed them from SHIELD Lia got her really drunk, alcohol like her anxiety medication wore off more quickly than on most people. Her powers saw to that. But due to her height and weight, if Trixie drank enough. Fast enough. Then she could get really hammered for at least a couple of hours. Lia of course had never touched a drop but her personality was enough that they had been in hysterics by eleven.   
“Ok.. Ok.. if you were you know.. going to be an aven-ger what would your name be?” Trixie asked, having to stop at least twice to hiccup. Her hand still clutching the bottle of peach schnapps she was nursing. Her powers did nothing for the taste, but after the shots that Lia had coaxed her through. She could barely taste the drink between her fingers. Lia took a long drink of her energy drink, and Trixie could almost see her shake with the sugar rush.   
“I mean not something lame that’s for sure.. maybe like.. Dissolver.. or Vanisha.” Lia giggled. “Because you know.. I’m kinda like a cleaning product, like one of those infomercial products that you always order.” They’re never this light about Lias abilities, usually they avoid talking about them. But tonight is different, they’ve strung fairy lights up from the ceiling at Lias suggestion they twinkle and Trixie finds a kind of childish delight in them that she hasn’t felt in a long time. There are paper animals too, and anything else that Lia decided could go up there. Photos, pictures from magazines. It’s like they’ve made their own night sky, and they lie looking up at it. Finding their own constellations in a pleasant haze. “What about you Trix? What would you call yourself?” Lia asks, turning her head as they lie on the carpet.    
“Oh.. I wouldn’t need a name. You know, it’s not like I’d be out there-”   
“That’s not the point of the game Trixie.” Lia whines, flipping over and propping herself up onto her elbows. “The point is.. if you were going to go out there. What would you name be.” Trixie sighs and takes another swig of the peach schnapps, a part of her wishes that she had never started this conversation. It seems pretty masochistic.   
“The prophetess I guess. Nothing with the word foresight in, sounds too much like foreskin. I could be Apollete. Apollo was the god of prophecy in ancient greece.” Trixie suggested, though by her sister's face she didn’t appreciate the lame attempts at naming herself.   
“Our genes are Italian, not Greek. We’ve never been to Italy Trix.. I wonder if that’s where our mother is. Or, or maybe she’s in the mafia. You know like that movie that you made me watch, the one that had that gross bit with the horse head.” Lia started, clasping her hands together like a gun. Trixie smiled weakly.   
“I highly doubt that the woman who gave her egg for scientific testing was in the mafia Lia, most Italian gangsters are strict catholics. And strict catholics don’t subscribe to test tube babies. And we’re hardly Italian Lia, we have some Italian genes but we’re American.” She said firmly, and Lia rolled her eyes again. Reaching out to pinch the side of Trixies butt, the brunette jumped and flipped Lias hand away.   
“Have a little imagination Trixie, she could have needed the money to escape the police. Or to fund a criminal organisation.” Lia's eyes were gleaming, and Trixie couldn’t help but smile with her. She didn’t have Lias imagination or her spirit, but when Lia started to paint her a picture Trixie could almost create the vision in her mind. She had no interest in finding the woman who had donated her egg so that they could live. She was grateful of course that she had, but Trixie didn’t feel the loss of a mother. She had Lia, and she had her father and now she had Dan and his family too. That was enough for her, though she knew Lia loved the mystery of it. The adventure of finding out who this mysterious woman was. SHIELD were starting to give them pieces of who they were. Bruce had never had time to stop to find out, but Lia had been curious and after a few threats about going public with what happened to them and slowly the information began to trickle out to them. Trixie could sometimes grab extra pieces by watching their decisions, by trying to see what they were deciding to give them next. But it was always touch and go. “We could help her Trix.. if she was on the run. Go to Italy and save her.” Lia giggled, while Trixie hadn’t been listening to most of what Lia had been saying before she smiled and wiggled her shoulders a little.   
“Vanisha and Apolette to the rescue.” She teased, before they both dissolved into a heap of giggles.   
“That’s it. We can never be heroes!” Lia declared, and Trixie reached out to shove her a little-

 

“What are you thinking about?”    
The question pulled Trixie out of the memory, and adjusted her hair a little as she looked up at Jasper. She only had the bow that she had on the day that they took her, but she had refused to keep it out of her hair. It had been a birthday present from Lia, one just like the velvet one from A Band Aparte. It was black, and sleek when it had been first bought. But now, it was starting to fray at the edges and Trixie didn’t know if she could bear it when it was really gone.   
“Home.” She replied, stirring her tea which had probably gone cold by now and trying to keep out of his line of sight. Jasper usually needed eye contact for his power to work properly, and she had no intention of saying yes to anything that he wanted her to do unless the order had come straight from Adam.That morning he had tended to her, and then departed the house. So of people who would actually talk to her she was now stuck with Jasper. Though the house suddenly seemed to be swimming with large men in black suits, it had seemed so empty before. She had found it rather comforting to see some life, it was strange though. The sudden activity after so long of long quiet hallways.   
“Well I’m not here to take you home, but I am here to take you somewhere that might stop you from moping from so much.” Jasper replied, and she raised an eyebrow.   
“We’re going somewhere?” She asked, looking around her a little. “I think that I’ve been pretty much everywhere around here.” Jasper rolled his eyes.   
“Just follow me.” He sighed, and though she wanted to say no just because she could. Trixie decided that she was too curious not to.   
“My tea is going to go cold.” She griped, just because she wanted him to know that she wasn’t under his spell.    
“It was already cold.” Jasper fired back. “You should cheer up, you’re going to like this.”   
“How would you know what I like..?” Trixie asked, her voice as meek as ever but she was honestly curious what he could possibly know about what she did and didn’t like.   
“I don’t.” Was the only reply she got, she was about to ask how that in anyway made sense when they came to the edge of the garden. “Look at me.” Jasper demanded, and Trixie shook her head.   
“No. I don’t want you to compel me.” She replied, biting on the inside of her lip.   
“Trixie look at me because I’m doing what Adam asked me to.” Jasper snapped, losing patience with her defiant act after only a few moments of it beginning. Trixie looked up, her ass hadn’t yet recovered from her punishment yesterday and she would rather not gain another one.   
“You’re going to get into the black car that is parked in front of the house. It’s ok because that’s what Adam wants. Driving you will be Phil, it would be polite to introduce yourself when you get it.” Trixie stood there for a moment, unsure of what to do. “Get in Trixabelle.” Jasper snapped.

The compulsion is stronger than Jaspers powers usually are, and she steps over the line of the garden gate. Very confused, before opening the door to the car and getting inside. Jasper closes the door behind her, and she looks at the driver.   
“Hello.” She said quietly, looking at the very large man behind the wheel. “I’m Trixie.” 

“I'm Phil.” The driver replied, his voice was thick with the same thick accent as both Adam and Jasper. But he seemed a little less contained.    
“Nice to meet you.” Trixie offered with a somewhat weak smile, her heart was pounding and she wonder if he could hear it. Though she knew of course that was scientifically impossible.   
“Pleasure kid.” Was the reply as he started the car. The windows were tinted but she could see outside, just like the window there was nothing but trees for a while. Unsure of what else to say, she watched in silence as they drove. Seeing the trees get eaten away by other large houses.   
“W-Where are we going?” She asked after a while, unable to contain her curiosity. Unlike with Jasper, Phil gave off more of an air of ease. Though she wasn’t sure if he had any abilities she hoped at least that she didn’t have to fear compulsion with him.   
“Shopping. Apparently you’ve bin wearin that bow for about eight hundred years an the boss is sick of lookin at it.” Trixie felt a blush rise on her cheeks, as she ran a hand over the bow in her hair.   
“Shopping?” She repeated quietly, glancing over at Phil again.   
“Yeah that’s what I said ain’t it. Nothin changed since the last time I told ya.” He grumbles, looking over at her with a more good natured expression than she was expecting. “Ya don’t have to look so frightened kid, I was told this was supposed to be somthin fun for you. You never had any fun before or somethin?”   
“Funs not really been on the table recently.” Was all she could really offer him as a response, shopping seems a very odd reason to let her out of the house. She’s been given plenty of clothes since she arrived at Adams, while none of them really fit her all that well. There’s really no reason why she would need anything else, captives didn’t usually need fancy wardrobes. But then the last time she had been held prisoner they had dressed her in scrubs so maybe it was just an unlucky start in the hostage game.    
“But your cooking has from what I’ve been hearing, apparently you make food for the Gods or some shit.” It was strange how taken aback she was by light conversation, while she sometimes talked candidly with Adam. He had been the only person that she had come even close to joking with in so long that she had almost forgotten what it felt like.   
“Oh, I’m not that good. But I could make you something, maybe. If it’s ok with um..” She wasn’t sure what to call Adam in this situation. Normal people didn’t call anyone Master, but Adam seemed far too casual for someone that he was holding captive.    
“The boss?” Phil added, and she let out another uneasy little laugh.   
“Yeah.. the boss works.” She agreed, deciding that she liked Phil. Well as much as someone could like a person who was complicit in kidnapping.   
“You mind if I put on the radio?” Phil asked, and she shook her head.   
“No.. go ahead.” She told him with a slight smile, it was funny that she couldn’t remember the last song that she actually listened to. So when the beats started to a months old Katy Perry song she found herself humming along. The car seemed to eat the road, and soon enough they were stopping. Phil leaned over and passed her a hoodie.   
“Put this on and put the hood up.” He instructed her. Nodding, she pulled it on. She knew immediately who it belonged to. The smell was telling. Phil got out and opened the door for her. “Keep ur head down, and walk inside that store..” He told her gesturing in front of them and following behind her, though he didn’t touch her. Not even for a second, the hoodie drowned her and the hood fell mostly over her eyes. Though she imagined that was the point. Walking inside the store she kept the hood up, she heard the door lock behind her and then Phil was standing to her left, “You can take the hood off now.” He laughing. “You really are fucking tiny.”    
“Don’t be rude Phil. Not all of us can be half giant, half moron.” Came a female voice with a strong eastern european tint to it.Trixie flicked the hood off, to see a tall brunette also with curly hair standing in front of her. Her legs seemed to go on for miles in leather pants, and her breasts were pushed up underneath a black tank top.   
“Pleasure as always Katseya.” Came the response.   
“Fuck off to my bar, and spend some god damn money.” The newcomer insisted waving her hand.    
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be back to pick up the kid in an hour. Don’t eat her, I need her back in one piece or he’ll have my balls.” Trixie felt rather exposed even in the hoodie, and she wrapped it a little more closely around herself. Unsure of what was going on. Katseya rolled her eyes as Phil walked past the counter and around the back. The blinds were down in the shop, and as Trixie looked around her she saw an odd assortment of clothing.   
“I’m Katseya. Katseya Maldonia. Yes you might have heard of my family, or me.” The other brunette started. “Model, socialite. Lesbian.”   
“Um.. yeah.. I guess I’ve seen your picture before.” Trixie replied, pulling at the sleeves of the hoody that she was wearing. Now that she looked at the girl a bit closer, she did recognise her. She was often splashed over magazine fronts, usually accompanied by a girl named Aria.   
“Good, good. But I suppose we’re not here to talk about me are we.” The tanned girl sighed, as if that was a great hardship to her. “I was told you were in need of some new clothes, and looking at you I agree.”   
“I.. I don’t.” Trixie started, but the taller girl held up her finger.   
“Don’t even start sweetie. That bow in your hair is ratty as fuck, we only have an hour. Not that it really matters to me. But it would be great if you could tell Sharknado that I did a super duper job with you. Could ya do that for me puddin?” While her tone was light, the accent in her voice intimidated Trixie a little.   
“Sh-Sharknado?” She asked, confused.   
“You know. Big, blonde, blue eyes. Grumpy as fuck.” The other girl prompted, and Trixie nodded wondering if Adam was aware that this other girl referred to him as Sharknado. She wasn’t sure why but her stomach curled with jealousy at this other person referring to Adam in such a casual way. “Anyhow, what do you like to wear? I’ve got a lot of shit hanging around here. Well it’s not really mine. But I guess I’m the only female that Sharknado keeps around long enough to be the one to do this with you.” Again Trixie felt a pang of jealously that this girl seemed to know more about Adam than she did. She didn’t like being told facts about him, when it wasn’t coming from him. Especially about girls.   
“Um, I always wear a bow in my hair.” She mumbled, catching the other girls line of vision. “I like dresses, pastel stuff. Knee socks.”   
“So you dress like a Japanese school girl on a day off?” Katseya asked, lounging against a pile of clothes. Trixie blushed, and looked away. Katseya half walked, half rolled over to a rack and pulled some things off. “I’m not allowed to touch you, so you’ll have to try this shit on yourself. You’re what? An extra small or do you wear kiddie sizes?”    
“I wear an extra small thank you.” Trixie replied.   
Katseya while rude was alright company, though she spent most of the hour lying in the clothes that Trixie rejected and trying to get her to take more black into her wardrobe. When Phil arrived to pick her up, Trixie had bags of clothes and new bows to match. Katseya waved her off with a lazy reminder to mention to Adam that she’d done a good job. The drive back with Phil was fun, and Trixie hoped that she got to see more of him in future. 

As she made the journey back into the house, she couldn’t help but sigh a little. Her temporary freedom however sweet, was already over.


	14. Forefilled

She doesn’t have to miss Phil very long, because the next day he arrives to bring her a pile of schoolwork. She’s grateful, she had missed having something to do other than worry. But it all seems very sudden, and Trixie feels like it’s a distraction. The new clothes, the babysitter who allowed to talk to her, the schoolwork. With her mind filled with these new exciting prospects she has less time to search for anything. Half of her wants to push it all aside, the new bows the textbooks. But the other half of her doesn’t want to know what he’s trying to distract her from. Yet at night she takes out the black bow and Lias picture, and she worries. Adam wouldn’t hurt Lia…. would he? He never hurt her, sure he kidnapped her. But she’s been treated almost like a house guest since she arrived besides the spankings and the videos of her own personal torment. But what guarantee did she have that he wasn’t out there right now, turning Lia into a human kebab like those men in the super solider program. There is a picture in an album somewhere of her and Lia standing next to Steve Rogers, she didn’t know how far his plan for revenge went and if he even had one. But she didn’t want her sister to find out the hard way. But she could play the trophy, with a new bow in her hair and a sharp pencil on hand. She started to try and work out what the setup was, with life back in the house it was obvious that there was some kind of large scale criminal organisation going on. Adams plans for SHIELD were personal and not the main operation around here. The guys in the hallways, they seemed to have no instructions regarding her other than that she wasn’t to be touched. They were happy enough to talk to her, though Phil followed her most places like a shadow. She supposed that some people would have found it annoying to have a babysitter, but having worked at SHIELD it wasn’t really any different. Besides the fact that she actually liked Phil.    
Unlike the last time, she was informed of the day that Adam was to arrive home. And she had a stack of bacon pancakes and a bow in her hair to welcome him back. As before he greeted her with a single tug on a curl.   
“The outfit you're wearing, I find it pleasing. I hope Katseya was helpful.”The last part sounded more threatening than perhaps it might have coming from anyone other than him. She wondered what kind of favours Katseya owed him.    
“Thank you Master, yes she showed me where everything was.” Trixie replied, while Katseya had been lazy she felt that to give her a bad review would be unkind. “You didn’t have to do that for me, but thank you it was very kind.” He didn’t reply, and she didn’t push. Eager to learn lessons from last time, Though her interest in how he knew Katseya still lingered in the back of her mind. “I made bacon pancakes for you.”   
“Good girl. Put them on the table, I’ll be through soon.” Trixie nodded and then moved into the dining room, out of the corner of her eye she saw Jasper and Phil flanking him. It reminder her of something, focusing as she made her way through to the kitchen. It clicked. That old conversation with Lia, Italian. They all had American Italian accents, a large scale operations, orders from the top. The mafia. They were the mafia. As Trixie put the knives and forks out on the table. She mulled over this piece of information, it didn’t really change anything. And she found herself rather indifferent. Yes heroes were supposed to oppose crime, but god who was she kidding. She was far from anything that Lia, or her father could respect now. Her train of thought was broken by his entrance and she smiled, taking her seat across from him.   
“May I ask how your trip was?” She asked quietly, taking a bite of her own bacon free pancakes.   
“It went well thank you.” Adam replied, in between bites. She always took a small pleasure in how much he seemed to enjoy every bite of her food. “I heard you were a good girl in my absence, and as you know when you misbehave you are punished. However when you behave there are rewards.”   
“Oh the new clothes and the school-”   
“Don’t babygirl, not when you’ve been so good.” He warns, and she holds her tongue. With everything she does, there is a biting sensation of wanting to please him that she knows goes far beyond his powers. She is strong willed in some ways, and highly intelligent but her need to please is something that she has found that really only he can satisfy. “You told me once that you love to read, and that little women is your favourite.” Trixie flicked her eyes up to him surprised that he remembered. Leaning across the table he passed her a parcel, slowly she unwrapped the gilded wrapping paper. She gasped a little as she opened it, perhaps it was a sad thing to admit. But she realised immediately that this was a first edition.   
“Thank you Master.” She gasped, quietly and looked up at him.   
“Like I said, when you’re a good girl you get rewards.”

 

He hasn’t kissed her again, they spend evenings together. Her reading and him silently working through piles of paper. They exchange facts occasionally, get to know one another. But he doesn’t kiss her. Occasionally he tugs on a curl or once when she read something aloud to him he ran a hand over her hair while she read. But there has been no kiss, and she’s starting to wonder if he’s doing it just to torture her. In her visions, she sees that they discuss her behaviour. But she’s had no true vision, and so Adams side of the conversation is lost to her. Though looking Jasper and Phils futures, confirms she’s correct about her mob suspicions and it gives her a strange sense of satisfaction to know that she was right. It’s been awhile since she had anything to celebrate about. Feeling bold one evening, she suggests they watch a movie. She’s never seen him do anything as domestic as that, but he has a giant TV in the middle of his living room and she figures he must watch it at some point.

But talking about a movie feels awkward and somehow they end up just watching a reality show. He’s sitting in the same chair that he always does, and she’s curled up on the sofa. Until she yawns a little, and he pats his lap. With her heart fluttering slightly, she makes her way over to him. It’s funny, she’s never been the dating type. Never really having found anyone who interested her before now, at high school she had never experienced the feeling of butterflies in her stomach. Never laid out on her bed wondering if her crush was going to call her. There had only ever been him, she was such a teenage girl. Falling for the one person who it was the opposite of intelligent to have anything other than hatred towards. 

Settling on his lap, she only half watched the screen and half watched his hand on her leg. Of course he had touched her before, usually during what she had now found out was called aftercare. But this was different, and she let out a soft little breath of surprise. Though a part of her had to roll her eyes at herself, getting so worked up over him. Licking her lips, she glanced a look at him and without any warning he leaned down and kissed her. She didn’t hesitate to kiss him back, small hands reaching up to grip his neck to pull him closer and he pulled her forward. Large hands twisting her around fully with ease. 

He had never known that their last kiss had been her first, and he had no way of telling that she was a virgin. He stood as they kissed, carrying her out of the room. Clearly showing off a little as he navigated with most of his attention on kissing down her neck, and raking his hands over her. When she hits the bed, she lets herself look up at him with her eyes as wide as they could go. Trying to work him out from staring at him alone.   
“I’m a virgin.” She whispered, feeling awkward about it. Her hands crossed over her body for a moment. Despite still being fully clothed, she already felt exposed.   
“Don’t worry Babygirl, I’ll take care of you.” He promised, and despite her nerves she believed him. Despite everything she had thought when she had first saw the vision, she let him have her. Let him guide her. And after they were done, she lay there naked in his arms and could not bring herself to regret any of it.


	15. Adam Part Lots

There is no hesitating the next morning, he’s had her twice before she’s even opened her mouth to speak. It’s much rougher than the night before, and she finds that she likes it better that way. It’s just as intimate, his hands gripping her tightly. Keeping her close, as his lips find their way all over her body. His lips occasionally making their way up to her ear, breath hot as their hips move together.   
“Mine.” He hisses, and she whimpers. Small hands trying to find purchase on the wide expanse of his body. He’s perfect, she wonders how much of that is down to the serum and how much is his own work. In one of his rare moments of sharing, he told her that he enjoyed going to the gym. “Say it. Tell me you’re mine Trixabelle.” He demands punctuating his words with a sharp slap to her ass. She finds that she likes it, the ones he gives her now are softer.    
“I’m yours.” She whispers, and for now she means it. She lies for a moment in the afterglow, and wonders what her sister would think of her now. Before he mutters something about a shower, and with slightly numb legs she follows him there. 

She’s more cheerful than she thought she would be as she’s cooking breakfast, sex was a decidedly good experience for her. Though she’s littered with bruises and love bites, that make her blush slightly when people pass her in the hallway. She’s surprised to find that he joins her in the kitchen  before she’s finished.   
“We’ll eat in the living room.” He informs her, Trixie nods.   
“Sure. Have you got a tray we can eat off?” She asks, never having seen one before.    
“I don’t know.” He says, seeming perturbed. “Mrs Potts.” Trixie knows the older woman, while she’s never really spoken to her. She’s the one who brings tea, at all hours of the day. She enters the kitchen and smiles at the two of them.   
“Good morning Mr Beiste, what can I get for you?” Her voice is cheerful, and Trixie smiles at her, she feels like if the woman had been allowed she would have spoken more to her.   
“You can speak to Trixabelle now Mrs Potts.” Adam said, and then turned towards the door. “I’ll be in the living room.” The conversation is pleasant between the two of them, and Mrs Potts insists on making her a tea while Trixie finishes up with the breakfast. And so she carries a tray of coffee and tea as well as the breakfast through. She nearly drops it when she enters the living room. On screen is the other guy, it’s news footage from New York and she has to put the tray down heavily on the table. Adam looks up, watching her.   
“You know him?” He asks, and she nods. Dumbstruck for a moment, so glad to see her father again. But terrified by seeing him on the news like this, what the hell was he doing. What were SHIELD doing.   
“Of course, I’ve met all the Avengers.” She replies. “I have to meet people to be able to see them. I meet everyone at SHIELD, counter in all the variables. You’re the first villain though, I’ve never done that before.” She’s covering her tracks, no questions about the hulk. Not under his powers, there’s no guarantee that he won’t find out things she doesn’t want him knowing. Things that could lead him to Lia.

“I’ve met him too.” Adam says, and Trixies eyes go wider.   
“What?” She asks.   
“When our friends at SHIELD were testing me, they wanted to see if I could control the Hulk.”    
“Oh.” She doesn’t ask any questions because she wants him to keep talking, and asking questions has never got her anything other than punished. So she waits instead to see if he will volunteer any further information.   
“Do your abilities work on him?” He asks, and there is compulsion behind those words. It’s been awhile since she felt his effects, and it feels stronger again. More consuming.   
“Yes. It took time to build it up though, he doesn’t make decisions like a regular person.” Trixie replies, and tries to stay as calm as she sweats. She watches his face, and she can’t be sure but she suspects that his powers don’t work on the other guy. Adams power is about human will power, and she just feels like the Hulk doesn’t have will exactly. He has instinct. She watches the news transfixed, it’s not like before. There doesn’t seem to be much cause, there is just footage of the other guy running through downtown New York. She tries not to let her hand shake as she watches, it’s not long before Tony joins him and Dan. There is only shaky mobile phone video, but Trixie wonders. Is it her fault? Has something happened to Lia?    
“They’re not like SHIELD.” She says quietly, his eyes don’t move from the plate of food he’s eating but he also doesn’t stop her from speaking. “The Avengers, Tony Stark he helped me. When my Dad found out what they were doing to me in there, he helped get me out of there. My sister, she dates his son. They’re good people.”   
“I don’t hurt anyone unless they get in my way Trixabelle.”    
“I just. I wanted you to-”   
“I know what you wanted. I am not some hurt boy on a mission for revenge. I don’t give a fuck about SHIELD or what they’re doing unless they get in my way or they have something that I want. So as long as your friends stay out of my way they’ll be fine.”    
Trixie has a million questions, but she keeps her mouth shut. That’s her new thing, she keeps her mouth shut and she figures stuff out on her own. She learned a lot from Bruce, but she learned even more when she left the road and started working things out on her own. It’s the same here, information like the information that Adam has given her has been valuable to figuring things out. But when push comes to shove, she learned most of what she knows about him and his operation by herself. Not everyone is as careful as him, and she’s around all of his guys now. Of course she knows, that he knows she can check out the future of every single member of his operation but him. And that’s the kicker, all of it is a distraction. Trixie likes Adam, and according to her visions someday she’s going to love him. But she can’t love him for as long as she fears him. So it’s time to step up.

 

She spends most of her time with Adam when he’s around, they eat together, they sleep together in more way than one, they watch TV, talk, go for walks. If anyone was looking at them from the outside they might think that they were a pretty regular couple. When she’s not with Adam she nearly always has someone with her, sure they’re always good company but she’s very aware that she’s being watched. Once every few weeks she gets taken out somewhere, but always in a very contained way. She watches the news religiously, waiting for a glimpse of Bruce of Dan of anyone. She knows she’s in Philadelphia, and that’s only three hours away from New York. But it’s so random, She might as well be anywhere in the entire goddamn country. It’s not like she’s unhappy, she has everything she could need here really. Except Lia, her other friends and family too. But Lia represents more than just family, she’s Trixies other half. She is the part of Trixie that wanted to be good, wanted to be free. She’s always given Trixie the confidence to do things that she wouldn’t have thought of on her own. Not having Lia is like only being half a person. But there is nobody in the world that Trixie can talk to about that. Because everyone and everything in the world that she currently exists within belongs to Adam. Besides one black velvet ribbon, and the secrets that she has left. 

  
“I don’t want you to work for SHIELD anymore.” Adam announces one day at lunch, Trixie looks up from the pile of papers that she had been looking over and raises an eyebrow.   
“I.. don’t work for SHIELD.. anymore?” She’s completely unsure of what the hell he’s talking about. She’s been living with him for nearly nine months now, sleeping with him for three. It’s safe to say she hasn’t been working at SHIELD for a very long time. Her feelings about him are complicated, she thinks somedays she loves him. Then other days she has to seriously consider how much Stockholm Syndrome she's developed.   
“No. You’re not working at SHIELD right now but if I let you out of the front door tomorrow you would go and work back at SHIELD.” He stated, leaning on his desk. Actually putting his food aside for a moment. She doesn’t know how to respond to that, because of course she would. What was he expecting?    
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”   
“You do because I just told you Trixabelle.”   
“Yes but it’s not something that I can give you.”   
“Why.”   
“Because I.. that’s where my family are.. it’s.. it’s what I do.”   
“Why.”   
Because…” She starts.  “I told you why.. because it’s the right thing to do.. I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to help people.” Adam snorts, and then presses a button on his remote. Instantly on screen her face flashes up and she wants to look away. She’s crying, her face thin and worn. She’s starving and tired. Trixie looks away.    
“Don’t you dare look away Trixabelle. Watch it.” He hisses, and she does. She watches as they sliced open her arm, listens to herself screaming. “ It doesn’t look like they’re helping you.” The Trixie on screen screams louder.   
_ “I can’t.. I see.. I don’t.. please.. please stop. Why are you doing this? Please.. someone.. help.” _ She wants to look away, but she can’t. Not because he is forcing her to but because she’s trying desperately to justify this. To justify what happened to her.    
“It’s not all like this.. those people.. they weren’t who I worked with..” She replies, wincing a little as she watches.   
“But they work alongside those people.. What did you get out of all this. Some scars. Did they make you a fucking hero like you want. No. They sent you to me without a second fucking thought.”   
“I was helping people there.. I was working in the labs..” Trixie stuttered, shying away from the aggressive way that he was leaning towards her.   
“That’s what they told you. How can you know they weren’t lying. You could have been working on anything.”   
“No!” Her response is childish, and there are tears filling the corners of her eyes. On screen Trixie is still crying, still begging. “What do you suggest I do? Work for you? I wouldn’t be helping anybody then.”   
“You’d be helping me, and Phil, and Mrs Potts. And you’d be helping yourself.” He says, his eyes focused on the fifteen year old version of herself. Who is finally starting to get quiet, as the medical team came to patch up the cut. “You said you were mine, prove it.” Trixie thinks about what to say next for a long moment. If it was just her, if she had nothing else to think of. She would let it go, she knows that. No matter how much she pleads that she is helping people, she would happily commit herself to helping him But Lia. There is always the question of Lia.   
“That’s not fair.” She says quietly, gulping a little. “I do everything you tell me.”   
“As you should.” He interjects.   
“Yes. And I don’t mind, but.. I’ve no promise from you.. I’m nothing.”   
“You’re not nothing, you’re mine.”   
“Yes, but what does that mean?”   
“It means you’re mine.”   
“You’re impossible.”   
“You could be dating anyone else, sleeping with other people.”   
“No.”   
“You coul-”   
“No.”   
“How woul-”   
“I said no Trixabelle. There’s just you.”   
“Oh.”   
“I’ll give you three days. After that I won’t ask you again, I want you to stop working for SHIELD.”   
“But..”   
“We’re not talking about this anymore.”


	16. The Truth

Two days before her deadline is up, she wakes knowing that Adams ultimatum is moot. Lias in trouble, and she has to help her. She had allowed herself one more night, one more night of sleep last night. But today, she had to try and make him understand that he had to let her help her sister. She didn’t have time to mess about being clinical or smart about it, Lia could be being drained of her blood as he lay there pressing kisses to her shoulders. At this point Adam finding Lia was the lesser of two evils, Trixie knew in her heart that Adam cared for her. And if he knew how much Lia meant to her. Then maybe he would be willing to keep Lia safe.   
“My sisters in danger.” She blurted out, and he made an annoyed sort of sound. It was early and Adam had never been good at being alert before at least one coffee. “You have to listen to me, there’s a lot you don’t know about my family.”   
“What are you talking about Trixabelle?” Adam muttered, though Trixie could feel him tense a little. His lips no longer moving against her skin. It was hard, hard knowing if telling him was the lesser of two evils. But he wanted her, all of her and she was just going to have to trust him. Against what the logical part of her brain was telling her.   
“My sister Lia, she has powers too. Our powers are genetic. I wasn’t the only one that they tortured in there Adam, and now SHIELD have got her… and I need your help..” Her words all ran together, and she tried to wiggle so she could see his face. This really wasn’t an ideal circumstance for making these kind of confessions, but once again time was running out. Lia was more important than Adams good opinion of her.   
“You want me to help.”    
“Yes, I can’t stop them from here. Please.. Lia’s going to get hurt and it’s my fault. Compel me, ask me anything you want to know. But please. I can’t.. I can’t let anything happen to her.” Trixie was nearing hysterics “You know what they can do, please…”   
“You kept this from me, and you want me to help.”   
“I’ll come back, I promise. I just.” She’s going round in circles, he’s no reason to believe her. Except that she can’t think about escaping, she can do nothing but beg for his help.    
“What is your sister's power.” He asks, and she feels the compulsion behind the words. She’s lost some of the trust that they had established.    
“She can make things cease to exist, literally blip them out of existence. Anything. Whole buildings if she wants to.” Her heart is hammering in her chest, her and Lia never ever tell anyone about Lias powers. Trixies they try and keep on the downlow but, it’s much easier to control people from attempting to manipulate Trixies foresight. There is so much danger with telling anyone, let alone someone who could potentially literally force Lias power on.    
“Why didn’t you tell me about this before Trixabelle.” He turns her so that she’s forced to look at him. To face the fact that she has clearly upset him, she knows how betrayed she would feel if the situation were reversed.   
“I was too scared that you might attempt to use her powers like you used mine, Lia never uses her powers. She spent nearly a year of her life being forced to use them before. I couldn’t let that happen to her again.” Trixie replies, breathing out her answer in a small voice. Truthfully she knows that if she had to go back and do it all again, there is no way that she would change what she had done. No matter how much it hurt him.    
“What else are you hiding from me. Tell me everything that you are keeping a secret from me.” He’s being clinically, he’s giving her no answer on what she really wants to know. All she needs is for him to tell her that he’s going to let her go to Lia, that her sister is going to be okay. The compulsion is the strongest that she’s ever felt it, and confessions pour out of her like a dripping tap.    
“That my father is the Hulk, that I used to live at Stark tower, that I wasn’t born I was engineered in a lab. I’m in love with you, once I burnt toast and I didn’t know where to put it because your bin was shiny and empty so I threw it into the-”   
“Stop.” She shaking, she can’t believe the words that had just slipped out of her mouth. She’s tongued tied, because he’s told her not to speak. She wants to though, Trixie wants to deny it all even though she knows that it’s totally useless to do so. She’s convulsing, trying to fight the compulsion. She wants to ask him to please, please forgive her. To help her. There is a long moment of silence. He’s staring at her and she wants to look away, but right now she doesn’t care what he thinks of her he just wants to help Lia.   
“I want you to tell me if you were truly planning on returning if you were to go and save you sister.” He says, and she lets out a breath.   
“Yes. I planned to come back.”   
“Tell me why.”   
“Because I love you.”   
“If I was to allow you to help your sister, would you be willing to take any punishment that I choose for withholding information from me upon your return here.”   
“Yes.”    
“Tell me why.”   
“Because I knew that I was doing the wrong thing and I did it anyway.”

He lies there looking at her, and she begs him with her eyes. She can see Lia in her mind, weak. Flopping onto the table, had they been holding Lia at SHIELD all this time? While she had been getting fucked. Lia could have been being tortured all over again.

“Get dressed.”   
“Are you-” She starts to ask as she moved towards the closet, starting to choose something a little more practical than what she would usually wear.   
“Don’t ask questions.” He snaps following her to the closet, she looks over at him. He didn’t compel her and so she still wants to ask him a million things. However she dresses in something that she thinks she could go to SHIELD in. After all they should want to see her back right, perhaps it would be easier than she thought to get Lia back. She says quiet as they leave the room and begin to walk down the hallway, he’s got a hand on her shoulder and she wonders what he’s going to do. She’s never been allowed in the garage before, the car usually waits outside for her while Jasper compels her. He gets in the driver's side, and she stop for a moment.   
“Are you coming?” She asked, she had assumed he would be trusting her to return to him. Or compelling her to do so, when she had asked him for his help in rescuing Lia she hadn’t thought that he would actually help her.   
“Yes.”   
“Can I ask why?”   
“No. Trixabelle you may leave this property but should anything happen that puts your life in danger. You are to leave and return here.” The compulsion is there and she wants to protest. How is she supposed to help Lia without possibly putting her life in danger. Though she figures that this is better than nothing.   
And that’s it, they pull out of the garage and onto the road.    
“Thank you.” She says quietly, he doesn’t understand how much Lia means to her. And she doesn’t know how damaged what they have or had is. But she has told him now, what she hadn’t even admitting to herself. She loves him,and now he knows everything.   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this may get rewritten. idk. i need your help with this scene. this is basically a draft, that needs an adam proof reader


	17. The Other Side Of The Equation Part 1

Lia stands and stares at a freezer full of empty tupperwares, Lia and Bruce had eaten them one by one. The carefully planned meals that Trixie had left behind in case of emergency. Her curly handwriting announcing both the name of the dish, the calories and how many it would serve. It was hard to swallow when the tupperware proudly announced. Three. The timings for the microwave were a helpful edition. Though many of them came out burned to the bottom of the pan or the dish. Trixie had never really planned for Lia to be making the meals alone. But Lia had tried, eyes following every curve of her sister's handwriting. Following the routine that Trixie had set, well most of it. Serving two bowls, and leaving the third portion waiting. In case the door should open, to reveal a girl with a bow who would no doubt be hungry. 

The tupperwares had sacked up in the sink, the tap often left dripping on them. Trixie would want to wash them herself, she would want to know they were properly clean. But when two, three, four weeks had past. Lia had taken it upon herself to wash them, she didn’t try to pretend that she could replicate the absolute clean that her sister preferred. But she tried, washing until her fingers pruned in the hot water. Then replaced each one where it would go, when Trixie came back she would want it that way. She would want to be able to see what they had eaten so that she could make more. That is what Lia had told Bruce when he tried to pull her away. When he told her it was time to sleep. Lia couldn’t remember where everything went, couldn’t remember the system. The long days searching, and the long nights cleaning had made her eyes blur. But she had to finish, she had to make sure everything was right. Trixie had been getting worse, it was the least Lia could do.

SHIELD had told them that Trixie was on a mission. That she was undercover and so she wasn’t able to contact them, but Lia knew that wasn’t true. Trixie would never agree to something like that without talking to Lia. Trixie didn’t even like to buy a new pair of shoes without talking to her about it. There was no way she was taking field work, it was impossible.

The empty tupperwares are  just like the bedroom on the left. The bed made perfectly, as Trixie had left it. Stuffed animals staring with glassy, empty eyes in a way that seemed to Lia like they were asking when Trixie was coming home. And Lia had no answer for them, no matter how hard she tried. She had hung little paper animals from Trixies ceiling, the kind that she liked so much. Hoping to give her a proper welcoming insisting that this was necessary. Now they hung with dust on them, along with the row of shoes by the door. Trixies cardigans folded and unworn. SHIELD had become very much like it’s name, they were still allowing Lia in and out but they weren’t giving her access to anything. They maintained their story, though with very little evidence to back it up. Lambast was the one they always sent to talk to her, his smiling face and diagrams meant nothing though. There was a piece of paper that Trixie had signed on the day before her disappearance that seemed to be consent to some kind of field work. But most of the document was classified. So all they really knew was that Trixie had signed something right before she went missing.Lia didn’t trust Lambast, while she had no evidence to back the suspicion up. She was sure that he knew far too much about her and Trixies abilities not to have been involved in what had happened to them before. 

The searching was endless, and Lia refused to stop. On every street corner in New York there was a flyer with Trixies name on it, her wide eyes gazing out at the busy streets. Lia had been door to door on the streets that Trixie went to the most asking if they had seen her.Trixies phone had turned up in Texas, but no matter where she looked nobody seemed to know anything about Texas. Lia had called every contact in Trixies phone asking if they’d seen her or heard from her. But each one sadly told her that they had not.

SHIELD claimed that Trixie was still in New York. That the mission was taking place in state, but Lia felt like she would know if Trixie was in New York. She felt like she would be able to track her down, this city was their home and if Trixie was anywhere in it then she would have found her way back to Lia. Nobody seemed to understand, the desperate nature of the search. In the beginning they were helpful. So eager and willing to lend their time and resources to Lias cause. Each lead had everyone jumping out of their seats, a noticeboard with everything they knew about what had happened to Trixie taking pride of place on the kitchen table. Tony had put out a billboard with Trixies face on and offered a reward for her safe return. Dan had used the suit to fly over the city from above to see if he could spot a bow and curls in the crowd. And Bruce had called through every family friend, every person he had ever spoken to asking if they had heard hide or hair of her. 

But as the months dragged by their help tailed away. As each dead end stared Lia in the face, more and more often they attempted to calm her down. To try and get her to consider the possibility that Trixie for now was not in a place that Lia could reach. As the leads for someone having taken her seemed deader and deader Lia couldn’t help but worry that SHIELD had taken Trixie. They were being so shifty, so adamant that they knew where Trixie was and that is what worried Lia. Maybe they did know where Trixie was, maybe they had her in a room somewhere, maybe in a cell. Forcing predictions out of her again, hurting her. It made Lia angry. She would do anything to protect Trixie, anything.

 

SHIELD had been holding her for five months, and she was exhausted. Their latest experiment had been with electricity. Could she still use her power when she was being electrocuted, Lia twitched in the chair. Still fighting despite her exhausted state, when the main scientist who had been recording her results suddenly called for them to halt the machine. She looked up, exhausted. Still shaking slightly from the shocks, the door to the room opened and despite how tired she was. Lia still attempted to stand up, everything in her being wanting to flee through the door and into the fresh air. The air was so stale in here, she wondered how many times she had breathed it in and out. Through the door they dragged something, that made Lia omit a sound that was on the surface of anger. But deep inside her there was a kind of feral delight. The tiny body that she was being presented with, was the one that matched hers. Trixie was so much thinner than when she had last seen her, pale, her curls limp around her face.   
“Lia.” She whispered, her throat hoarse. “Lia, I’m so..” One of the men leading her pushed Trixie into the chair opposite and Lia stood up. Faster than she knew she was capable of in her weakened state, Trixie reached out. Attempting to stand too, two sets of hands reaching for one another. It seemed like it was the cruelest thing yet, when they were both pushed down. They had been so close, and Trixie began to cry.   
“Please.. please.. Let me.. Just let me be with Lia.” She begged, and Lia tried again to stand up and reach her sister. Trixie lashed out, as they shoved Lia down again.    
“Restrain them.” Came the order, and Lias heart hammered. No, no, no. They were so close, her and Trixie they could get out of here and go far far away. Now she knew Trixie was here, that she must have been so close. She watched as Trixie strained.   
“Lia. You’re real.. please tell me you’re real.” She begged, tears streaming down her cheeks as Lia watched.    
“I’m here Trix. We’re going to get out of here don’t you worry, we’re going to get out of here.” Lia wanted to make her sister feel better, she didn’t know how it was possible as they strapped her legs down. Then her wrists. Leaving her hands free, always leaving her hands free. She could see the marks up her sister's arms, the faded ones and the fresh red lines. There had to be a way to get them out, they had to get out.    
“Miss Banner if you could look at me.” The researcher said, as if this was just a class. Just some sort of test at Trixies school. Lia didn’t take her eyes off Trixie. She couldn’t, she couldn’t be this close and be totally useless. Trixie stared back at her, though Lia could see that she was slipping in and out of being with them. “This morning you experienced several round of electrocution. Now we will be using the same on your sister, testing whether her visions are still viable during a shock. Should you wish to stop this at any time, the man performing the experiment will be stood right by you.”    
They wanted her to kill. That much was clear, Lia had wondered why the man pressing the switch had been wearing headphones. He clearly had no idea that they were using him as bait. Trixie was still out of it, she wouldn’t be able to hear anything. Lia panicked. As they began hooking the wires up to her sister.   
“Don’t touch her! She’s in a vision. Stop. Get your hands off her.” It was useless, but Lia screamed all the same. Moving her body frantically. Not Trixie. Not Trixie. “So can’t see anything.. she can’t.” The man with the clipboard nodded at the switch operator and then Trixies body convulsed. Her eyes flickering open, mouth caught in a scream.   
“Stop.” Lia ordered. “Stop it.” Trixie looked over at her.   
“Lia it’s okay.. Don’t.. I’ll be okay.” She said in a hoarse voice, her thin shoulders still trembling. “Don’t make her.. Don’t you dare.. Don’t..” More tears leaking down Trixies cheeks, and Lia realised that she was also crying. Why would people who were supposed to be helping people, supposed to be looking after people do something like this? They were supposed to be the good guys. It didn’t make any sense to Lia, she couldn’t even begin to think why anyone would want to torture someone like this. The man with the clipboard nodded, and Lia screamed even before Trixie did. They weren’t even asking her questions, this had nothing to do with Trixies powers. They just wanted to push Lia, to make her snap. The scream went on for longer, and when Trixie finally stilled she looked almost lifeless.    
“Lia.. I.. don’t.” Her chapped lips moved around the words, and Lia could only wonder how much more Trixie could take. How many more red lines would they make on her arms? Why were they doing that. Why were they doing any of this. For power. The man nodded again, and Lia almost reached to grip the wrist of the switch man just as Trixie screamed again. Long and hard. Piercing through every nerve of Lias body. That broken sound, and then silence. Trixies chest barely rising and falling, as she slumped in the chair far too still.   
“Stop! Stop hurting her.” Lia commanded, the guy holding the clipboard tilted his head.    
“Oh Ms Banner you know you can stop him at any time. You're free to end your sisters test at any time.”   
“This isn’t a test, you’re not even asking her anything. You’re just hurting her, stop. Stop hurting her.”   
The man with the clipboard nodded again, only this time the switch that flipped was Lias and Trixie remained still. And safe for now.


	18. The Other Side Of The Equation Part 2

“I want compensation.” Lia is shocked when Trixie speaks from the hospital bed next to hers, her sister had been quiet throughout the entire discussion with SHIELDS lawyers. She’d been almost silent since they’d both been taken out. Her hand clutching onto Lias, eyes either locked onto Lias face or staring out of the window. The lawyers had spent days trying to get her to speak, to give some indication that she agreed to any of the terms that they were suggesting. Their own lawyers had struggled to get Trixie to talk. About any of it, even the doctors. Only Lia could get her to talk. Only Lia had that power.   
“Excuse me Miss Banner?” One of the men asked, looking at Lia as if to ask her what Trixie was talking about. But Lia had no idea where this had come from, when she’d tried to talk to Trixie about what she wanted her sister had been mute. She had been happy enough to ask Lia about how she was feeling and occasionally to quietly discuss the TV that played in their room even at night. But she had shaken her head when Lia had tried to get answers about what they should do about SHIELD. Instead spending long hours, searching for the future. Lia could feel the tension that rolled off of her body. It was unlike Trixie, usually she was quiet but expressive. Her face like an open book.  Lia could always tell what her sister wanted. The anxiety pills had helped, Trixie had been catatonic when they had first let Lia see her again.. Clawing at herself, talking about dirt, rambling about predictions of the future. The anxiety meds had kept her quiet, but she seemed so far away from Lia even if this was the closest they’d been in months.   
“You heard what I said. I want money. That’s how the legal system works, you can offer us sorry and you can talk about what you’re going to provide but I want money. Lots of it.” Trixies face was hard and cold, an expression that Lia didn’t recognise. She frowned, concerned. She wasn’t sure where Trixie was going with this. What were they going to do with money? Did Trixie want to go away, Lia didn’t want that right now. She wanted to be in New York with Dan and Bruce. She needed to feel free, but she needed to know that everyone they loved was safe. Right now she felt like if she closed her eyes. her family might all vanish into thin air.   
“Ms Banner, while we under-”   
“You won’t give me what I want, fine. I’ll go public.” There was a nervous cough that went around the room at this statement. Nobody had ever used the word public, it was somehow considered a given that Lia and Trixie would keep their mouths shut. “ I don’t even need to start on the actual physical attacks. I could just talk about the sleep deprivation, the starvation, the denial of the medication that I require to function. That would be enough to put every single one of you away and get the money that I want. So I get what I want either way. Either you give it to me now, or I go to court, Simple, so why don’t you make this all easier and just write me a number and then I’ll add the zeros. Then we never talk about this again.”    
“Trix-” Lia starts, completely shocked at her sister's reaction.    
“Ms Banner.” The lawyers were all looking at one another, completely shocked. In all the time that they had been talking to both of them they had never touched on money. Of course they assumed people like Lia and Trixie wouldn’t want it. That they were noble, Lia had never considered asking for money. She just wanted to know why, why anyone would want to do what had been done. She couldn’t imagine anything that could make up for something like that, they had violated them. Made them use every inch of their beings. Though Trixies expression remained the same. Regarding the men in suits with about as much interest as she did the basketball when it played on TV.   
“I don’t want to hear it, I don’t want to know how you didn’t know. How the people involved have been fired. I don’t care. I just want zeroes on a check and for you all to leave me and Lia alone. I can see it all, every meeting you lot have. I see that. I know. You don’t give a shit about how they tortured us, what they made us do. None of you care, you’re wondering how best to shut us up. How best to keep us on board, if that’s even possible. Whether you should terminate us. Yeah. You considered murder, all of you. So no, I don’t want to hear about your plans, I want money. All of your money. Then I want you all to get out of my life, for good. I just want to be with my sister.”   
“Trixie…” Lia says quietly, completely at a loss to deal with what her sister was saying.    
“Lia I’m sorry.” There were tears brimming in Trixies eyes, but Lia knew that she meant what she’d said. The apology was for Lia and her alone.   
“We can see that you’re distressed, perhaps this-”   
“No. That wasn’t for you. I’ve told you what I want. So starting suggesting numbers. Or I start making phone calls. Believe me I’ll know just who to call.”

  
Trixie had gotten her money, and over time she had come around to the idea of returning to SHIELD. She hadn’t been joking about taking them for everything that they had, the numbers in her and Trixies bank accounts weren’t something that they’d ever dreamed of. Or anything that either of them could really imagine spending even in a million years. After they were sure that the people directly responsible had been removed, slowly they had began going back into SHIELD with Bruce and Tony. Trixie making use of the resources and Lia enjoying the atmosphere. The amount of things that they had to explore. But Lia wouldn’t forget what Trixie had said to SHIELDS lawyers about what they had wanted from the two of them. Though it turned out she should have thought about it a lot more. As the ninth month with no Trixie passed, Lia got desperate. She got Lambast alone, and demanded to know what he knew. Where Trixie was, and then they had taken her. She couldn’t do it anymore, she would destroy SHIELD if that’s what it took. But it was her that had been taken then, they had told her they were going to tell her everything. And she like a fool had believed them. Instead she found herself back in a room, this time her hands put where she could do nothing. They weren’t testing her anymore, they knew how to hold her. And how to stop her from ever being able to escape.    
“We want to know the last time that you spoke to your sister.”   
“The day before she disappeared, the day before you took her.” Lia accused.   
“The sooner you tell us where she is, the sooner you can both go free. We have no intention of hurting you Miss Banner. We just want to know where Trixabelle is so that she can be kept safe.” The blonde woman told her, with a sharp smile.   
“I told you, I don’t know. I;ve been searching for her, you know that. You told me she was on a mission you told me that you knew where she was.” Lia yelled.   
“Ms Banner, we really must insist that you give up the pretense.”    
“I DON’T KNOW. STOP LYING AND TELL ME WHAT YOU’RE DOING TO HER.” Lia screamed, sick of all the quiet talk. Like this was a job interview and not her and her sisters lives. She was sick of being lied to, of being manipulated. Trixie had been right all along, they should have just taken the money and run.    
“There is a chance, that she could have been. Reached by either the Yes Man or Weapon X.” Suggested one of the men in the room, gulping a little as he said the words weapon x. “We never did find out if Ms Banner spoke to the Yes Man on the night that she disappeared.”   
“That’s true.” The blonde replied, and then she reached into an envelope. And held up a picture. “Have you seen this man?” She asked. Lia wondered if this was the same man that Dan, and Lance had spoken about being asked to identify. She shook her head, no she hadn’t seen him. But she wondered if he was the one that had taken Trixie,   
“No. I don’t know who he is.” The blonde woman then held up a second photo, of a boy sitting in the same kind of room as her. His face plastered with blood, but his blue eyes were something that she thought she would remember if she had met him.   
“No I don’t know who he is either.” She replied, and wondered why it mattered if she knew them. Why SHIELD were asking these questions.    
“Miss Banner we will give you one more chance to tell us where your sister is.” The blonde woman said, her perfect teeth bared like knives.   
“I don’t know. You tell me.” Lia hissed back. The woman across from her nodded.   
“Take the samples. Mudu is to be located as soon as possible.”   
An IV was brought forward and Lia struggled, trying to get her hands free. If she could just, move them. But it was useless, the IV was in her arm before she knew it. The blonde watching her with cold dead eyes. Lia just hoped that whatever they did, wouldn’t help them find Trixie. If Trixie had truly run away, then she hoped her sister stayed that way. Far, far away.


	19. New York

They’re having breakfast. Lia could be dying and they’re having breakfast. He made her. Each bite she takes makes her feel a little more ill. She’s got a hood up, curls tucked away under the fabric of something they had bought in a hurry in the first clothing shop that they stopped. Almost the minute they drove into the city, she saw them. Flyers, her face on every telephone pole. Street corner, some of them blowing around in the wind. Have you seen this girl? As Trixie stared back at her own face, she had to wonder the same thing. Had she seen Trixabelle Banner? The girl smiling in the photo didn’t look like her, the picture Lia had used had been taken after Trixie had got her High School Diploma about a year ago. It’s one of the few pictures where she looks happy to be on camera. She had been so proud. So happy to feel like things were finally getting back to normal. Where was that girl now? How could she have let this happen? Let Lia spend months, and months plastering her name all over their home. She had been quiet, but the guilt was eating away at her. The pancakes on the plate should make her feel like she’s home, but they just make her hate herself more. He’s been silent besides the instruction to finish everything on her plate. His is nearly done, and so she forces herself to eat faster.   
“Where are they holding your sister?” He asks, draining his second cup of coffee and making eye contact with her.   
“I think at SHIELD, the room looks the same as the place that they were holding us before.” Trixie replied. “I can search for the future of the people who are holding her if you would just-”   
“Don’t tell me what I need to do Trixabelle. I will ask what I want to know.” So they’re back to this. The mistrust, the tension. She’s a prisoner again, and she shoves another mouthful of pancake into her mouth. Unsure of what else to do.   
“I just want to help my sister.” She replied, dipping her head about as far as it would go.   
“I know. And we will.” She almost interrupts him, she doesn’t have time for stupid power struggles right now. She doesn’t care, he can compel her for the rest of her natural born life. Hate her. Hell right now he could kill her, and as long as Lia lived she wouldn’t care. “Who is holding your sister exactly.” He asks, as he takes out his phone.   
“Um a blonde woman with glasses, I think.. I think her name is Vanessa. I used to see her a lot. I think she was.. involved in what.”   
“I know.”   
“What?”   
“Vanessa Hawkins was one of the chief scientists on your case, but she slipped through the cracks when SHIELD were getting rid of the people involved.”   
“How do you know that?” Trixie asked, looking up at him. Totally shocked.   
“I’ve been tracking her, she’s the one who passed your tape to me. Tipped me off to the fact that SHIELD were going to send you to meet Jasper. I met her in a bar months ago. I was going to kill her.”   
“Oh.” Was all Trixie managed to say to that piece of information. She didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to feel about the idea that he had been planning to commit murder on her behalf.   
“You didn’t have to do that.” Trixie said carefully, unsure of what he wanted her to say to that. She didn’t need anyone to die for what had happened to her and Lia, except that now she did. She wanted Vanessa Hawkins dead. Of course she had been compelled to tell him about her, and forced to hand over her tape. But she had taken Lia of her own free will, tried to correct her own mistake by forcing the blame on Lia.   
“I know.”   
“Why would you want to do that?” She asks, she thinks she knows why he would want to kill someone for her. But she wants to hear him say it, she wants to know that all these months that Lia has been searching for her haven’t been wasted. That he cares for her in some capacity, but of course his face doesn’t betray anything and neither do his next words.   
“You may look for the future of Vanessa Hawkins now.”

 

Trixies vision tells them that she was right, they are holding Lia in the same SHIELD facility as last time. It’s sloppy, but old habits die hard Trixie supposes. It’s a surprisingly easy process going to SHIELD, between her gift and Adams the whole journey isn’t really all that exciting. It;s just a case of her telling him the outcomes of each option and him easing their way through. She hates the anger that’s rolling off him. She doesn’t know how to say sorry for something that she;s not really all that sorry for. She had to keep Lia a secret, it’s not like she didn’t tell him that she had a sister. But how could she have trusted him, the answer was that she couldn’t. And it wasn’t like he was Mr Honesty, she still had no real idea what he was after from SHIELD. He said it wasn’t for revenge, but killing Vanessa Hawkins sure would have been revenge. She wanted to talk to him about it all. To ask what she could do to make it all better, but she figured that it was just better to wait it out. It wasn’t like asking questions or trying to get answers that he didn’t want to give had ever worked out for her so well in the past. She feels shakey being back through SHIELDS doors, and she stays closer to his side than is probably appropriate. But she doesn’t care, what has she really got to lose at this point.

“Hand over your weapons and then face the wall.” Adam says to the guards, and she looks up at him. So far he’s just been telling people that they want to let them through. He hands her a gun, and she takes it with shaky hands. “Do you know how to fire it?”  
“Yes.” She replied, Bruce had never wanted her and Lia to learn. But of course SHIELD had made sure that they both could. And after what had happened to them, occasionally Trixie had taken the time to go down to the shooting range. To blow off some of the steam that seemed to be trapped inside her.   
“Good.” They kept walking and Trixies heart was hammering. She recognised these hallways from before. When she had finally seen the light after all that time kept inside that room. Remembered the feeling of freedom, she tried to  keep her fear off her face. But she knew that she often failed at tasks like that. The corridor seemed so long, Trixie wanted to run and tear the door open but at the same time she was afraid of what they would find there. They had no way of telling whether they had already taken blood from Lia, or really if Lia had even been taken yet. But as Adam pushes the door open, it’s come to the moment of truth and Trixie raises her gun. Lias killed to save her and she’s willing to do the same. She doesn’t have any doubts about that.

Sitting across from one another are Vanessa and Lia, Vanessa starts to stand up and Adam shakes his head. But Trixie can't even look at Vanessa right now because Lia is sat there. She is sitting there and she is alive, Trixie isn't sure how she was breathing in and out before. Because right now, all she wants is to be with her sister. Lia looks a lot better than she had done in the vision, they clearly managed to get to her before she had been taken for very long. Trixie was relieved, she didn't know if she could have handled seeing Lia all drawn out and thin. Though she doesn't look exactly healthy, large bags under usually bright eyes.   
“Stay where you are Vanessa.” He says dangerously, and Trixie runs over to Lia. Grasping at her, pulling her as close as she could. It felt so good to be able to hold her, to grasp onto her to know that she was there, She wouldn't be able to let her go again. Lias hands are grasping at her too, pulling her closer. And Trixie feels a sob rising in the back of her throat. Lia is alive. Lia is safe.   
“Get up.” Adam says to Lia, and Trixie starts to shake her head. No, Lia shouldn’t be controlled. Not after all that has happened here. But she’s too relieved.   
“Trixie!” Lia says, and Trixie starts pulling her towards the door. She can’t stay here, they can’t stay here. They have to get out.   
“I know.. We have to go.” She says, licking her lips and looking over at Adam.   
“What.. Who?” Lia starts.   
“Move.” Adam orders and both of them start to walk towards the door. Though Trixie can’t bring herself to get her hands off Lia. Not now she’s seeing her again. She doesn't let go and Lia seems afraid. Feeling the compulsion for the first time will be terrifying for her. Trixie realises.  
“Who is he?” Lia asks, as they start to move down the corridor.   
“He’s my.. my.. friend.” Trixie decides on, and she’s about to look at Adam to come up with a better word. He appears out of the door after them, and ushers them on. Vanessa walking behind him blindly. "He.. He's important to me." It sounds like bullshit, and Lia will probably be angry later when she gets some kind of story. But for now, she seems content with that. Probably slightly blind to the compulsion, as they stumble out of SHIELD. Vanessa tails off from them, and Trixie doesn't look at her after that. Though she feels Lia start to. Trixie can't think about what Adam might have asked Vanessa to do, and she hopes to God that Lia keeps her mouth shut. Just for a little bit. Because she doesn't want to think about what will happen once she realises what Adam can do, and she doesn't want to think about what Adam is thinking right now. All she can do is clutch her sisters hand and keep running, it's all she knows.


	20. Answers

“We’re not friends.”    
It’s the first time that he’s spoken since he made Lia put herself to sleep, she had thought that they were going to share the same uncomfortable silence that they had on the journey there. And she looks up, eyes still swollen from the tears that she had shed when she had realised what he was going to do. She didn’t want to be separated from her sister, but she knew how Lia felt about freedom. Surely it was better for them to be apart, than to doom her to a life trapped indoors. Of course he wasn’t to know what he was doing really, he had trapped her in his mansion and now she was fucking him. Perhaps he thought that he could get two for the price of one. Bile rose in the back of her throat at the thought. Lia wasn’t like her. Lia wouldn’t want this. It was a mantra that she was repeating to herself inside her head.    
“No.” She replied quietly, staring at her knees again. She didn’t want to look at him right now, part of her wanted to blame him completely and make him the monster in her mind. But she had brought this on Lia too, she had allowed him to do this. Without putting up a fight, because she wanted his favour back so very desperately. “She’s not like me.” She told him, as if it would do Lia any good now. If she glanced into the rearview mirror, she could see Lias sleeping form and she had to wonder what Lia would think of her when she woke up.   
“How so.”    
“She loved travelling, I told you that my Dad took her and I around the world with him when we were young. He didn’t want to be in anywhere too long in case someone discovered us. I wasn’t lying about anything. I had a good time, but Lia loved it. She loved finding out about different cultures and different languages. She’s never had to the patience for school, she’s never had the patience for anywhere for more than a little while. New York is the only place she’s ever stayed. I like quiet and my books, but Lia she likes loud and fast and things that are constantly moving.” Trixie explained, the words pouring out of her in a way that was slightly desperate but also in a way that was awed. She couldn’t fathom the relief that she felt to just be near Lia again, she had wanted to sit in the back with her. To run her fingers through the slightly raggedy looking locks that were spread out  over of the cushioned seats in the back of the car. She couldn’t imagine what Lia had been through. While she had been worried, desperate to see Lia at least she had known where she was. At least she had known that she was at least relatively safe. Lia had been left to wonder. To try to figure out what had happened to her sister. And again the guilt gnawed away in the bottom of Trixies stomach.  She should have tried to fight the compulsion, to reach Lia in some way. “I know I don’t have any right to ask, but.. I want to ring our Dad. Both of us are missing. He could, he could Hulk out. I’ll tell him we went travelling together, or something. Please.. Master. I don’t want him hurting.” She’s begging, she doesn’t want Bruce to suffer. She’s already forced that on Lia.   
“You’re right. You don’t have any right to ask.” Adam tells her sharply, and she cowers against her seat again. However he digs into his pocket and hands her Lias phone. “We’ll be disposing of this anyway. You will not tell him anything about where we are going, and you will not say anything about having been taken by force. You will tell him that you and Lia have decided to go travelling together and then you will hang up. You will not call anyone else.” She nods, and clutches at the phone. Opening it up, her heart pangs again when she see’s the missed calls. 37 from Dan, 13 from Pepper, 22 from Lance and 4 from Bruce. Trixie licks her lips and then presses Bruces number. It rings, and rings. Until she hears the beep of the answering machine.    
“Hi Dad, it’s Trixie. SHIELD were holding Lia, we had to go. We’re going to be travelling for a while. We want to stay off the radar. I can’t tell you where I’ve been, but just know that we’re safe. And that we’re together. We love you, stay safe.” She hangs up the phone, and he takes it from her grasp. She had managed to keep her voice steady but Trixie has a lump in the back of her throat. She doesn’t know if she’s ever going to see her father again. She doesn’t know if Lia will ever see their father again. Why should he get to decide that? 

“If we’re not friends, what are we?” It's a jab, she knows he’ll have to answer her honestly. But as much as she wants to please him, there is a large part of her that is so angry that he took Lia. He had no right to, he can’t just take and take. Isn’t she enough? Or has he used her all up now that he’s had her. She doesn’t feel like obeying his rules right now, not when she just had to give her father something that was akin to a goodbye.    
“In a d/s relationship.” He says, his face hard. His fighting her questions. It’s possible to use true facts to get around compulsion. She’s an expert at that by now, and she supposes it’s only natural that he is too. Though she resents it. “Are you trying to get yourself in more trouble Trixabelle? Do you want to be punished.”   
“No. But I want to know why I just said goodbye to my father. Why you took Lia.” They aren’t questions, because she wants to him to want to tell her. She wants him to care about what she thinks of him. Because she loves him, and he still hasn’t acknowledged that.   
“I don’t have to justify myself to you.” He snarls, but she doesn’t care. She’s hurt everyone she cares about. For him. And he’s going to give her some answers.   
“You should want to. Do you care about me even a little, or I am just some girl that you fuck?” Trixie hisses back, Lias sleeping form spurring her on. Making her braver.   
“Of course I care about you.” She gets a bit of satisfaction out of the fact that he has to tell the truth, that he gets even a little taste of what it’s like to be compelled. “Why do you think I helped you save your sister. As if I care what happens to her. I thought you were supposed to be intelligent. For the rest of this car journey you will only speak when spoken to.” He commands, and she has to fall silent. And the rest of the car journey is spent with him asking clinical questions about her family.

  
Her punishment it turns out, is worse than she could have anticipated. She is forbidden from seeing Lia. All she had to offer Lia, here was herself and Lia is carried to a separate part of the house before she’s even woken up. Trixie is left without a goodbye once more, she’s only a few rooms away and yet she cannot reach her sister. She cannot apologise and she cannot explain. There will be no chance to prove that she isn’t completely under his spell. She’s restricted again, allowed only in his bedroom, the kitchen, the dining room and the room that is now designated for her school work. There will be no more trips to see Katseya, and Phil's visits will be limited. She is almost a prisoner once more. He has put no time limit on her punishment, and just as he did with her, he spends hours a day interviewing Lia. She knows better than to ask about what they talk about, right now she is on her very best behaviour. Anything to end the punishment and be allowed to see Lia again. She offers him his favourite meals, the very sweetest of kisses and anything else that he might desire. Hoping for just a glance of her sister, it’s the most frustrating thing in the world to know that Lia is so close to her. Yet she is not allowed to see her, she worried that he might keep Lia from her from the same amount of time that she kept Lia from him. Trixie doesn’t think that she can last another nine months without her sister. It’s just not something that she can fathom. However she allows two weeks to pass by, without complaint without argument and without any kind of behaviour that could warrant further punishment. As a reward for good behaviour, and since Adam has left on business she has been allowed a little more scope for roaming. Just the entrance hall, because she begged. So that she would be able to wait for him when he got back, and also the outdoor food store. Because she was bored of having the ingredients brought her instead of being allowed to choose herself. On the day that Adam was due back having been done with schoolwork for the day, and with Phil being called away to work. She was sat on the stairs, watching people walk through the entrance hall. Wondering what Lia was doing. Whether she was okay. When the door banged open, Trixie stood up as a striking blonde stormed inside accompanied by two mob guys who looked very nervous.   
“Miss Beiste, if you would just wait a moment. Mr Beiste isn’t in right now and he wouldn’t be happy-” One of them said, his tone pleading. Trixie cocked her head to the side with interest. The girl was far too young to be Adams mother, so she could only be a sister or a cousin.   
“I don’t care if he’s here or not. He’s been avoiding my calls, he hasn’t invited me round. So I’ll wait here until he gets back.” The blonde insisted, her heels clicking on the marble. Trixie felt like she should flee upstairs, and she started to go. “Who are you?” Came the sharp call from downstairs. Trixie kept moving, hopefully she would be mistaken for one of the many members of staff who lingered around the house. “I’m talking to you.” Trixie turned, brown eyes wide.   
“I um.. I cook for. Mr Beiste.” She started, she had no idea what Adam would want her to tell this blonde.    
“You can’t talk to her.” One of the mob guys said loudly, standing in between her and the blonde. As if trying to block her from view.    
“Excuse me? I’m Angelica Beiste, and I can’t talk to whoever I want to. Come down here.. we haven’t met before.”    
“Stay where you are Trixabelle.” Came Jaspers voice, and Trixies heart stopped beating quite so fast. While she was never usually pleased to see Jasper, she felt like Adam really wouldn’t want her talking to his family members. Captives/Fuck Dolls weren’t really the types of people that met the parents. “Angelica you will go and wait quietly in the living room. Adam will be home this evening. Trixabelle you may stay where you are. Everyone else, back to work.” Angelica flipped her hair and then started to walk.   
“I hate you.” She told Jasper, and then looked over her shoulder right at Trixie. “Who is she?” She asked again as she walked.   
“Ask your brother.” Came the response, to which Angelica huffed.   
“As if that is a viable option.” Trixie wanted to giggle a little at that response, though she wondered if Adam was being honest what would he describe her as? An employee? A sexual partner? Knowing that Adam had a sister, made her think about Lia again. What she was doing, what confines Adam had put on her before he left. And how long it would be before she would have any answers at all. She supposed she would just have to wait for Adams return. And so with a heavy heart, she leaned her head against the balcony and did just that.


	21. The Waiting Game

He doesn’t come home, she waits and waits. But the doors don’t open, and eventually even Jasper seems to be unsettled. From the rooms that she’s allowed in and a little bit of help from her visions she tracks his every move around the house. He’s tried Adams phone at least seven times and that has Trixie worried. He never leaves messages but then Trixie doesn’t feel like Adam is the kind of person who really listens to worried answer machine messages. Jasper never loses his cool, it’s one of the things that annoys her most about him. But eventually as the clock strikes eleven and dinner is officially too cold even for a very hungry Adam, Jasper joins her on the stairs. And they sit there in silence, him checking his phone and her fiddling with the edge of the pink dress that Adam had expressed a like for once. She can hear the clock ticking on the mantle and she counts the strikes.    
“Where’s Angelica?” She asks finally, usually she does just about anything to avoid talking to Jasper. But she’d rather not sit here and think about how all three of the people that she cares about most are currently possibly in trouble with her unable to reach them.   
“I distracted her with dinner, she’s used to Adam being home late. She doesn’t think anything of it.” The other man replies, Trixies surprised that he gave her an answer . But she’s not going to waste what she thinks might be an opportunity to get her mind off of things.   
“Are they close? Her and Adam?” The question is timid, usually her questions around here are met with snapped responses. Unless it’s Phil and then he usually gives her a sad smile and tells her that he’s not allowed to answer them. So she usually has to stick to his husband and the weather, which is lovely but it would be really nice to finally get to know some of what is going on.   
“Yes and No.” Is the answer that she’s given, and she’ll take it.    
“Is my sister okay? And before you-”   
“Yes, your sister is okay. Adam would never hurt her. Despite her constant pushing.” Jasper snaps, and Trixie is surprised to see quite how angry Jasper looks at her question.   
“He dragged her all the-” Trixie starts, she doesn’t think that her question is all that unreasonable, but Jasper is looking at her like she just suggested that Adam murdered fifteen puppies with his bare hands and then used their blood to write his name on the wall.   
“He did that for you.”    
“What?” Ever since their conversation in the car Trixie had made the assumption that he saw her as some kind of house pet. Purely a submissive who could cook and be something to warm the bed at night. “Did..did he say that?” Jasper rolls his eyes.   
“Of course not. But why else would he bother bringing her back here? You don’t exactly usually live like one of our prisoners here. Do you?”   
“You have other prisoners?” Trixie starts, wanting to listen to what Jasper was saying but then also wanting to just clarify the last statement for a moment.   
“Shut up and only answer the question that I asked you Trixabelle.” Comes the angry retort.   
“No I don’t.” She sighs, wishing that she could stab a fork into Jasper's hand and see if he wanted to see what it felt like to be the prisoner.    
“What did you think was going to happen when you picked up your sister? That we were just going to let her run around talking about how a man with mind control powers took her sister and brainwashed her?” Jasper asks with a sarcastic tone in his voice.   
“He could have just told her not to tell anyone, if you’ve met her then you would know that she is the last person who want to be compelled to stay in one place for even a few hours. Let alone.. forever. It’s her worst nightmare.” Trixie snaps back, glancing up the stairs as if Lia might be standing at the top listening to her.   
“I have met your sister. And I know for a fact that you’re wrong.”    
“Are saying that you know my sister better than I do?” Trixie almost hisses.   
“No. But I am capable of making people tell me the absolute truth, as is Adam. And your sisters worst nightmare isn’t losing her freedom. It’s loosing you, for some reason which I have yet to discover.” Usually Trixie would roll her eyes and think about all the horrible things that she would like to do to him. But she’s too busy wishing that she could see Lia. That she could tell her how sorry she was that they were trapped her, it’s all her fault and all Lia wants is to be with her. And now Adam is missing and she might be bonding with Jasper. They don’t talk for a long while, and in the end they sit there all night. Her heart pounding in her chest, she knows he isn’t dead. The compulsion would be broken if he was. But something just feels very wrong.

  
“Where is he Jasper?” She asks as the sun comes up, and Jasper rolls his eyes.   
“As if I’m going to tell you.”   
“Compel me to look for his future.”   
“No.”   
“Oh, so you’re going to let something bad happen to him because you’d rather I not know whatever it is that you two are up too. That’s idiotic.” She snaps. “He could be hurt or in danger and you would rather that than just let me help him?”   
“I said no Trixabelle.” Jasper responds, though he does look like her words moved him a little. The house buzzes with activity once more, and Trixie watches as Jasper gets up and continues to try Adams phone. As he wanders off, Angelica flounces back into the room.   
“You.” She says. “You cook right? I’m hungry.” Trixie looks at the door and wants to refuse, but she’s more worried about the scene if she refuses so she nods and slowly descends the stairs.   
“What would you like?” She asks quietly, she had planned bacon pancakes for that morning. Another way of getting on Adams good side.   
“Bacon pancakes.” Angelica replies. “I love bacon.” Trixie almost smiles a little when she realises that Adam and his sister share a love of meat. She supposes that the blood lust runs in the family. She surprised when Angelica follows her into the kitchen instead of waiting in the dining room. She starts the batter, without saying anything to the blonde and just hopes that Angelica enjoys the same kind of pancakes as her brother.   
“What’s your name?” The other girl asks rather suddenly, rummaging in the fridge. Trixie cringes a little, she had just got everything organised and she hates when people go in there and ruin it. Adam was like a hurricane when he decided that he needed a snack, and she didn’t trust his flesh and blood not to be exactly the same.   
“Trixabelle.” Trixie replied, she had given up trying to get people around here to call her by her nickname. And at this point Trixabelle isn’t so bad anymore.   
“And why haven’t we met before Trixabelle?” Angelica asks as she pours herself a glass of iced tea. Trixie wants to point out that she could do that, but she feels like questioning Angelica might not be something that she wants to do.   
“Um I’m not sure.. I’ve been here for about ten months.” She admits, feeling like that’s the next question that is likely to occur. She likes to get things out of the way and she wants to go back to waiting for Adam on the stairs.   
“That’s just like my brother, keeping you locked away when I visited. What’s so special about you?” Angelica asks, as Trixie starts to fry the pancakes in the pan.   
“Nothing.” Trixie says with a shrug as she turns on a separate pan for the bacon. “I just cook for him and we talk sometimes.” Angelica rolls her eyes.   
“Are you two fucking?” She says with a smirk plastered across her face. Trixie flushes a bright shade of red.   
“I.. um.” She starts, she’s not sure what Adam would want her to do. Would he want her to deny it? She flips the bacon onto a plate, and is about to start on another pancake.   
“Trixabelle.” Jasper's voice comes very suddenly and interrupts whatever Angelica was about to say next. Trixie turns, worrying that she was i trouble for having spoken to Angelica. “Come here.”    
“She’s making me breakfast.” Angelica protested, waving one perfectly manicured hand at Jasper as if to dismiss him. But Trixie crossed the room, hoping that Jasper had some kind of news of Adam. Jasper takes her down the hall.   
“Alright, he’s not answering and it’s been more the twenty four hours since he was supposed to be back. Trixabelle you will search for his future.” Jasper tells her and she’s overwhelmed. 

  
Searching for him is harder than she thought, he’s in a location that she’s never been before. So the edges of the vision are blurred. But she’s relieved to see that he’s standing, though battered and bruised. His left eye swollen from what looks like a punch, his hand clutching onto several piles and a silver case. Her heart hammers, she had no idea how the serum effected his healing abilities but she can only hope that it made them stronger. He’s limping, but her main concern now is trying to focus on the landscape. As he crouches behind a set of wooden boxes, she can see his chest rising and falling. She manages to hone in, he’s inside some kind of scientific facility. She recognises some of the machinery that he’s surrounded by, which means that it’s pretty generic equipment and so not a good identifier. It’s hard to make out the details, but she filters out the sound of the whirring machines and Adams slightly laboured breathing. It makes it a little clearer and so she looks for anything that could be unique to where he is. A logo, an indicator of climate. On the wall she spots a logo and a set of initials it takes her a few attempts and a long of energy but she manages to bring the image into focus. It’s an owl that looks like it could fly off the wall at any time with the initials ARI beneath it, she breathes. And pulls herself out of the vision, the longer she spends inside. The longer Adam has to try and survive.


	22. Explanations

“Being stuck in a car with you driving to Texas is my idea of a nightmare.” Trixie huffed in response to Jaspers jibe about her choice of rescue gear.

  
“Why the fuck do you need a black, sneaking around bow in your hair? I thought you were a member of America's most secret service or whatever.” Comes the hissed reply.

  
“I was a research scientist, and I predicted things. I was never a spy, I’m an eighteen year old girl.” Trixie snaps, the mood in the car has been tense from the very beginning. Her fingers twitching as she attempts to focus on the road in front of them. The visions of a bloodied and bruised Adam are echoing in her brain. Everytime she blinks she risks getting a flash of it, she didn’t take her pills this morning. And she can’t pretend like there isn’t a part of her that wants to see, that’s desperate to know if anything has changed. If their rescue mission gives her any further details, but she can’t. She can’t seem to push herself past that image. Emotions have always coloured her visions, often she has better control than this. She’s learned that over the years, and she’s trying to keep her distance from the images that she see’s in her mind. Telling herself that it’s no worse than seeing Lia dead, no worse than all those days of just seeing what terrible thing they were going to do to her sister next. But then she can’t help thinking that it’s all her fault, what if he ends up like Lia? She made Lia into a killer, she made Lia use her powers for the thing that she least wanted to do. Lia never would have killed anybody if she hadn’t been involved, why couldn’t she have just kept quiet? They would know she had come for her sister, and then they would start looking for her accomplice. The whole thing could have just been a trap, they probably thought she was working with him. She didn’t want his blood on her hands, she didn’t want anything to happen to him.

  
“Well why the fuck am I bringing you along then..? I thought you were supposed to be a fucking avenger or something.” Jaspers reply is moronic rather than the poison that she had expected. That she had wanted. 

 

“God no. And you’re bringing me along because I can tell you what’s going to happen before it happens obviously.” Trixie responded, rolling her eyes. He’s not giving her anything to focus on. She can almost hear Adams breathing in her ear, that heavy laboured sound that makes her heart beat faster. As she taps her hands against her knee again. 

  
“Do you even know how to use a gun?” Jasper's shoulders are as tense as her, he’s scared. A part of her wonders if perhaps instead of taking shots at him, she should comfort him. But she’s not Lia, she doesn’t care if he’s scared. She only cares that he gets her to Adam, so that she can make sure that he’s safe. Jasper can die in the process for all she cares, he isn’t her friend.

  
“If course I know how to use a gun, and believe me if I wasn’t compelled not to. I would take one of the many guns you’re storing in this car and make sure that you never reproduce.” She’s never been brave enough to say anything like that in her entire life, but the sick feeling in her stomach and the thought that they might be going into a nest of danger makes her braver.

  
“You wouldn’t be able to even have a grasp on the trigger before I had it pressed to your skull little girl. You’re not untouchable just because you’re Adams pet you know.” He snarls, and for a moment Trixie remembers how scared she was of him on the first night she met him. But she’s willing to call his bluff on the untouchable part. He’s never laid hands on her, no matter how much she annoys him. He placed his hands on Angelica to guide her, yet even when he used to come and collect her to go out to Katseya he never put so much as a guiding hand on her shoulder. She’s willing to bet her life that he’s not allowed to touch her, other than compulsion which requires eye contact. Jasper has no real way to control her. She’s as free as Adams orders leave her. 

  
“Mhm.” She simply hums in response and reaches before he can stop her for the radio. The music is some pop song that she doesn’t know. Everytime she gets in the car she feels like the world has moved on so much without her. The new sounds are enough to block out the visions for a little while, but she can see them vaguely in the back of her brain like the flashing light of an answering machine. Unchanged. Unshifting, she can’t see anything before Adam stumbling behind the set of boxes in the warehouse which means there are other people that she doesn’t know involved. Because she doesn’t know why he’s there, she can’t attempt to factor out the other people to focus on his actions. She knows Adam well, but not like Lia. She doesn’t know what he wants, not really. She’s catalogued the injuries that she can see perfectly at this point. Probably a broken right arm, a black eye, a slash through the leg and several other bruises and cuts. Including a reopening of the cuts on his arm that were made during his time in the testing facility. She thinks that part of this is personal, despite his claims he didn’t want revenge. She’s already seen him take retribution once, Vanessa walked out in front of a car right before her eyes. Trixie hadn’t batted an eyelid, but she had been glad that Lia hadn’t been awake. Enjoying revenge wasn’t something that she had been raised to do. They weren’t supposed to act on their anger, they were supposed to be above that and to simply learn from the mistakes of others.

  
“What is Adam doing. I need to know, if I know motive I’ll be able to see more.” She says, very suddenly. Shaking her head a little as if trying to banish her own thoughts.

  
“As if I’m going to tell you.” Jasper says with a rather cruel laugh.

  
“Oh so you’d rather he just bled out on the floor then.” She fired back.

  
“Isn’t that going to happen no matter what I tell you?”

  
“No. I can’t see the actions leading to him getting bloodied because I don’t know any of the people he’s with and I don’t have any motive. Give me motive and maybe I can work out where he’s going to be so we can help him before the beaten almost to a pulp stage.” She’s not heard herself this angry since she demanded her money in the hospital. She won’t let something terrible happen to Adam because Jasper was being a stubborn asshole.

“How do I know you’re not just trying to find out our plan. Why the fuck should I tell you anything?” I don’t like you and I don’t trust you.” He seems to be weakening and despite herself Trixie decides to give him something to work with.

  
“Because I love Adam, and I would never do anything to hurt him.” She says in a much softer tone than she has been using. Her face turning just slightly red despite herself. Jasper checks over her face, as if trying to test if she was being genuine or not. But she knows he’s really trying to decide if he should waste a compulsion on checking whether or not what she is saying is true. “I promise that I’m not lying. I wouldn’t lie about something like this. I’m not com-”

 

“I know you’re not compelled.” Jasper snaps, the suggestion that Adam would compel someone to love him. Is obviously something that doesn’t sit well with him. Which said something about his character at least. That was the thing Trixie feared most about being compelled, all it took was one of them to put the words you want to with a command. And they could make her want to do anything. Adam had never forced her to do anything too drastic, but occasionally he had tested that he still had control.

 

“So tell me, so we can help him. Keeping it from me isn’t doing him any good.” Trixie demanded, brown eyes staring straight at him. She wanted Jasper to feel the same urgency that she was, every millisecond that they spent arguing was one closer to Adam lying hopelessly behind those boxes.

 

“As I know you’re aware Adam was a part of an attempted super soldier revival scheme.” Jasper started, putting his foot down on the pedal. Finally giving Trixie the kind of speed that she had been dying to demand since they got in the car. “After he escaped and murdered the doctors directly responsible the organisation closed his files down, he was the only surviving party of their experiments in that field and so they wanted to erase what they had done. However they kept searching for Adam, sending people with abilities to seek him out. Trying to create the next Captain America wasn’t the only thing that they were interested in. They collected toxins, blood samples, even one set of fetal matter of known inhumans. Attempting to use those samples to create more inhumans that could be used as weapons. I myself was one such experiment, they used toxins from the purple man on me. Which allowed me to pick up a little of his ability, though you are aware that it is limited. Adam and I were cell mates while they were holding us. ARI pick on the weak, the desperate or those who have no choice. I was doing time in jail for racketeering when they picked me up, offered me a chance to get out of jail. All I had to do was try some new drug they were working on. Then I’d be free. Fucking liars.”

 

Trixie had wondered about how Jasper had gotten his powers, before she had known their limits she had assumed that they were genetic like hers. Though she was interested to hear that was not the case, though a part of her just wanted Jasper to hurry up and tell her what Adam was doing. Her knee bouncing slightly, eyes glancing to the clock for a moment though she had no idea how much time they had at all. 

 

“Anyway after Adam broke out he took me with him, his family had always been involved in the mafia and so he took over from his uncle. As ARI sent people after us, we would compel them or convince them to help us instead. A mafia filled with inhumans. Unstoppable, some of them no longer needed compelling once they realised that ARI weren’t making them fucking heroes. We’ve been knocking down ARI piece by piece taking them down when they think that they’re winning. Using their own people against them. Then some of our guys got careless with their powers, showing off to girls. Using them in plain sight, and then you’re little organisation SHIELD got involved. Sent people to shut us down, so Adam and I stepped in. Used the people they sent to find out more about SHIELD, to learn if it could be used for the same purpose as ARI. And that is when we received your tape, well fragments of it. We didn’t know that SHIELD had inhumans too, so we asked Vanessa about you and she revealed they were planning to use you against us and of course you’re familiar with the rest.”

 

“Yeah.” Trixie confirmed. “I know.” So SHIELD had known there were more inhumans out there for a long time and not said anything about it. Trixie had no idea why she had ever trusted them, it was clear they couldn’t be trusted.

  
“We’ve been trying to get everything that Vanessa knew about you, but she’s clever. We never specifically asked about your sister so she never had to tell us. So we assumed you were the only inhuman they had experimented on, but after seeing your tape in comparison to ours. It seemed too unlikely that ARI weren’t in some way linked with SHIELD. The methods of testing were too similar not to have been designed by the same people. So we searched for a link, bringing down ARI and having control of it wouldn’t be possible if they had a second base in SHIELD. But we didn’t get our link until we questioned your sister, You two are test tube babies and the Banner DNA that was stolen to create the two of you was transferred from SHIELD to ARI. Your sister had tracked down your mother, so all we had to do was search her name on both the ARI and the SHIELD files to make the link that she was registered on file at both. Take over ARI and we now have control of both SHIELD and ARI. Adam was supposed to be on a short trip to compel one of the resident scientists at ARI to hand over the only known full copies of the tapes of the experiments on him, Lia, you and me. Erase our presence from the system, so that he could run the organization completely anonymously. However it looks as if something may have gone wrong.”


	23. Scars

Pain is something that Trixie is familiar with, her and Lia played when they were little. There were cut knees, bruised bodies and even a broken arm. But not like this, this is real pain. Agony. Every cell of her body is on fire, as tears drip down her cheeks. People talk about being able to resist anything for their families, that they would rather have every limb hacked from their body than give up even one morsel of information that would harm the people they care about. That physical pain wouldn’t sway them. But her body is shaking, her thin frame vibrating in sheer terror and she screams. The knife slices through her arm, and she looks up brown eyes desperate and she knows that she would do almost anything to make it stop. She’s a fifteen year old girl, not a superhero. She can’t do this, she isn’t capable. She just wants it to stop, wants them to just please leave her alone.

 

“Would your sister kill for you Miss Banner?” The question is so calm, the blonde keeping careful notes as if Trixie isn’t fading before her eyes. As if this is just some regular test, as she’s not talking about forcing a fifteen year old girl to take somebodys life. She saw, they know she saw. She saw Lia murder a man for her. She knows what will happen if they put them in the room together. But they want her to say it, as long as she won’t talk it’s just a guess. She can still save her sister for now. Trixie screws her eyes closed, but she can hear her own blood dripping onto the floor. Pale skin stained with red, as she slouches back in the chair.

  
“I don’t know.” She lies, a gasping breath leaving her. Head shaking as she tries not to look at the wound on her arm, her training from Bruce tells her that they’re near to a major artery and she wonders. Would she die to save the life of a man she doesn’t know? She can hear her heart pumping in her ears, feel herself shake, every one of her gasps for air seems to fill the whole room. 

 

“I don’t think that’s true Miss Banner.” The blonde says with a sick smile, that has Trixie writhing in her bonds. She wishes she was strong, or that she could fly. She’s seen people with amazing powers, yet all she can seem to manage is to cause herself more misery. She wishes she could kill the woman in front of her with her bare hands, stop her from ever hurting Lia. But Trixie isn’t strong, she’s useless and the knife descends further on her arm. “How are we supposed to test if you can still see while under duress if you won’t answer our questions honestly?” 

 

“If you cut me much further down I’ll die, What kind of tests can you conduct on a dead girl?” Trixie snaps back, and then screams as the man to her right drives the butt of the blade into her wound. “Or I go insane? What happens then, when you trap me so far in the future that I can’t come back to myself? What then you sick-” Another scream that rips itself from her chest and echoes off the walls. The knife has slid down her cheek, and Trixie watches mouth open, lip trembling as the blood slips down her cheek like a tear and dribbles onto her pale hand.

 

“Would your sister kill for you Trixabelle?” The blonde asks again, as the blood pools with a sick drip, drip, drip. Her tears catch the wound, and the salt stings. Everything in Trixie's heart tells her to say no, to do her very best to lie. To do anything but let them do that to Lia, but she’s floating. She’s far from them now, the pain is too much. She can’t handle this. 

 

“Yes.” She chokes out, her voice hoarse from screaming. The tears sliding over the open wound fast now. She deserves it, she deserves everything that they’re doing to her now. How could she betray Lia? It’s her fault, it’s all her fault.

 

Trixie can’t even begin to count the number of nights that she had woken screaming to that memory. The worst thing that she has ever done, a constant memory as soon as she closes her eyes. That’s why she has to do it, she can only live with herself when she’s helping people. She’ll never be a hero, never be anything like her sister or father. But she can try, she can keep trying to scrub the blood off her hands, by doing the right thing. She deserves to stay at SHIELD, because she is responsible too. All she can do is keep trying to do something to right the wrong, they don’t talk about it. But she knows how that murder haunts Lia. They never spoke about anything, because if they looked in one another's eyes and thought about it for a moment then Trixie doesn’t know if they would ever manage to carry on. Lia had spent nine months alone with those demons, Trixie had no idea how she had survived. 

 

For the first couple of months after they had returned Trixie couldn’t even look at herself in the mirror, the scar on her cheek could be covered with make up. But she could always see the thin line, that crack in the girl that she wanted so desperately. She had tried covering it with her hair, ducking her head so that nobody would see it. The rest of the lines that criss crossed over her skin, she wore as a reminder. But not that one, that was the mark of her betrayal and she would do anything to make her skin heal. That had been one of the worst parts about those early stages in her capture, she had been trapped in a room with no make up. Forced to spend days on end staring at her reflection in the small mirror across from her bed. The traitor finally where she belonged.

 

Once Adam had held her face in his hands, two fingers pinching her chin. Her eyelids hooded as she looked back at him, still in the bliss that followed submitting to him. His thumb had come up and stroked that same scar.

 

“What did they do to you Babygirl?” He had asked, and she had pulled back from him. Shaking her head, feeling the bile rise in the back of her throat. He hadn’t seen, he didn’t know. Of course not, he didn’t know anything about Lia. He didn’t know what she had done. And hopefully he never would.

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  
They arrive at ARI armed and ready, the hope is that they can drag Adam out before he becomes beaten up and bloody. But Trixie is having a lot of difficulty seeing past the people that they’re fighting. Which Jasper has griped about at least eight times since they got out of the car, Trixie was considering shooting him in the back of the ankle just to make him stop talking. She was terrified that they were going to find Adam worse than beaten and bloody. Scared she was going to mess everything up and make things worse somehow. She didn’t trust her own visions, especially not when she was this emotionally compromised. They were always subject to her fears, and hopes. And this was the man she loved, in danger. She’d never been in love before, she had no way of testing how that would effect what she could and couldn’t see. They approached the building in silence, Trixies fingers clasped around the gun that Jasper had given her. She might know how to use one, but she had never killed anyone before. She didn’t know if she could, but she didn’t have time to second guess anything when Jasper kicked in the door to the warehouse. All she could do was raise her gun and hope for the best.


	24. I know

Two men are already dead, the minute they got through the door Jasper told the first man that they found that he wanted to kill everyone who worked here. Trixie kept her head turned away as the shots went off ahead of her, gun pointed out. There was always a difference, between training and reality. She knew that all too well. Just because she had seen human life evaporate in front of her before didn’t mean that she wanted to watch it. A part of her still felt sick that she was so okay with it all. She should feel guilt, regret that this had to happen. 

  
“Which direction.” Jasper hissed.

  
“Left. Those brown boxes. It seems his fate it settled on there. If we can just hold our own until he comes out..” Trixie started, Jasper gestured for her to follow him behind the nearest stack of brown boxes. Once they were hidden, he leaned closer to her. Gunshots echoing around the warehouse.

  
“Stay here. Wait for us.” He ordered, as she avoided eye contact. Firstly because she thought that Jasper was going to need his powers for more important matters and secondly because there was no way that she wanted to follow that order. “Trixabelle for fucks sake I don’t have time for you to play the fucking hero right now. You might have been trained on the range, but you’re just a kid with no fucking experience. You think that we can just walk past em? Stay here, or die.” Jasper offered, and then left her there. 

 

With Jasper gone, all Trixie could do was sit with her heart pounding. He was right, she had no clue what she was doing. While she was in the car she could focus on visions or what Jasper had revealed to her about ARI. But now, all she could think about was how little she really knew how to do. She wasn’t cut out for this, she’d never fired a gun at an actual person in her life. Rescuing Lia had been a different story, she had felt totally safe with Adam. Now she was on her own, and she was terrified.

 

Hyper aware of her surroundings, Trixie kept her gun raised. She could hear shots going off all around her, she couldn’t risk using a vision to look for the future. Because the chances of her surviving losing time were almost non existent. There is a movement closer to her and she peers around the edge of the box. There is a guard nearby to her, facing in the direction that Jasper went and she is faced with a choice. Kill him, and maybe buy Jasper some time. But possibly expose her position to the rest of the room, or let him go and him possibly find her anyway and leave one more man out there who could hurt Adam. The shots continue around her, and she thinks of Adam beaten and bloody. Of the scar on her arm that is visible even now. 

 

Before Trixie really knows what she’s doing, she finds her fingers squeezing the trigger. Though other shots are already filling the room, hers seems to be the loudest and the guy looks around. Gun raised. And so she fires not one more shot, but two. His body convulsing with odd rumours as he falls to the ground in front of her. She sits back panting a little. Had she really just done that? Killed a man in cold blood? He hadn’t attacked her. He hadn’t even seen her and she had killed him. Though she didn’t get much chance to think over her choices as more footsteps came her way. She fumbled for another magazine in case she needed it. She wasn’t going to die here, not without seeing Lia again. Not without at least making sure that Adam was going to make it out. Moving around the side of the box, she caught the guard unawares and fired two shots into his back. Jaspers plan of her lying low, had so far been useless. Moving behind the back boxes, she looked down at her hands. They were shaking a little as they held the gun. Carefully she listened, and then headed left. Her body was like a livewire, she no idea where the next danger might come from. There was a crash and she raised her gun again, her second hand still clutching the magazine.

 

Jasper emerged around the corner, supporting a very angry and bloody looking Adam. Trixie let out a shuddering breath of relief and lowered her gun. She was so grateful to see him alive, he didn’t look as battered as she had seen him in some of her visions and she took that as a blessing. And despite his beaten down state, he seemed to be attempting to shove off Jaspers help. 

 

“What the fuck?” Adam growled, as she moved towards him. “You brought her?” Trixie almost let out a nervous laugh. How could he be angry about such an insignificant detail,  at a time like this.

 

“She was the only way I could find out where the fuck you were.” Jasper told Adam with a roll of his eyes,  and continued walking. Trixie wanted to lean over and do her best to take some of Adam's weight but she felt that her help would not be appreciated. So instead she walked along quickly beside them, her hand itching to take his. To just feel that he was safe now, though she knew that she was getting ahead of herself they were hardly out yet.

 

“I wanted to help.” Trixie said quietly, licking her lips as she looked up at him. She found that he was already looking at her, blue eyes flashing dangerously as he looked her over. Self consciously she touched her face, finding something wet there. As she moved her hand away she recognised a familiar shade of red. “Oh.” She said softly, in her relief at seeing Adam alive she had almost forgotten about the two men that she had killed. He didn’t say anything but she could almost feel the anger radiating off his form. 

 

As they turned the corner they were faced with a guard. “You want to kill every guard that you see and leave us in peace.” Jasper said quickly, and they carried on walking. Trixie tried to breathe more steadily. To look a little less out of her depth, but she was terrified that out from behind every box was going to be another guard. She hadn’t seen any of this, she couldn’t be the alarm bell that she was trained to be. 

 

When they finally made it back of the door, she wanted to run. She could do that, she could take off right now. The parking lot in front of her was littered with various vehicles. She could take any of them. Try and make it on her own, with Adam weak, and Jasper unable to make eye contact she could run. She couldn’t take Lia with her, but she would be free. While it was impractical, she could try and make her way back to her father. Tell them where Adam lived, do the right thing. It was the first time in nearly ten months she had her own free will,and the possibilities were infinite. But in spite of all of that, she chose Adam. 

 

They reach the car, and she watches, frozen as Adam climbs inside. She knows he would hate that she’s looking at him like he’s injured. But she’s half worried that something else awful will happen to him if she looks away. When the door slams shut, she clambers into the back and finds Jasper looking right at her as she closes the door.

 

“Go to sleep Trixabelle.” He orders, and Trixie wants to swear at him. But despite herself she finds herself slipping away into sleep.

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

If she dreams, she doesn’t remember it. And she wakes to the familiar feeling of soft sheets and a heavy hot body beneath her cheek. For a moment she wonders if the whole thing had been a dream. If Adam had come home safe and sound after all, but the cut over his eye that she can see as she cracks her eyes open tells her differently. Adam isn’t looking at her, but his fingers are caught in her hair. His expression far off into the distance. 

 

“How long did I sleep?” She asks quietly, she would rather inform of her newly conscious state. Than have him discover it himself. He looks down at her, but his hands don’t move from her hair which is a positive sign.

 

“Did you sleep before you left?” He counters, though she’s used to him not answering her questions at this point. So she lies her head back down on his chest, her hand pulling the sheets back around herself. 

 

“No. I was waiting for you.” She replies, not bothering to begin to hide the truth. He always finds out one way or another, and Trixie is still too tired to even put up a little bit of a fight. She wants to ask what happened, who did this to him. But she knows she won’t get any answers so she traces the lines that appear in the sheet in front of her. “Are you okay?” She asks, not expecting an answer. But it’s one question that she doesn’t seem to be able to stop from pouring out of her mouth.

 

“I love you.” He says, and her breath catches in the back of her throat. Yet again it’s not an answer, but it’s the answer to a question that she’s been too scared to ask him for a long time now. Nothing is perfect, her sister is still locked away and she killed two men. But for now, it’s everything and she licks her lips.

 

“I love you too.” She whispers, looking back up. To see him smirking slightly.

  
“I know.”


	25. Snake Skin

Things are almost back to normal with Adam returned. She’s got Phil with her almost twenty four seven when she’s not with Adam at the moment, side effect of her and Jasper's excursion. No Katseya privileges and most of the house is off limits. But it feels good to slip back into the familar routine, she wakes up and makes breakfast. Studies in the mornings, makes lunch and then has free time in the afternoon unless Adam wants to see her.Dinner, bed. It’s a good life.

 

Sometimes she gets to meet people, mob members that Adam wants her to look out for. She sits in the little room that she does her schoolwork in, and Phil brings them in. They’re all very quiet unless she asks them questions. And usually she asks a lot, the more she knows about a person the easier it is to get a good read on them. She can tell if they’re answering her questions freely or if they have been compelled to do so. Some of them are afraid of her, they flinch at the sound of her voice and they tremble when she opens her eyes from a vision. She wonders if it’s her powers or the little B that hangs around her neck that puts the fear in them.

 

The B came soon after the I love you, but not before she had made him a promise. Adam healed quickly, and despite her worries he had left her only two days after they had rescued him from ARI. He had woken her to inform her, which was new. Before it had usually been Jasper or Phil who would inform her that he was gone. 

 

“I’ll be gone for two days. You are to stay here. Any commands from Jasper are invalid.” 

 

It was compulsion, he was stamping out any loopholes this time. But she still nods her head, as if it was simply a human command. Sitting up in bed properly so that she could speak to him, small body feeling lost in a great white sheets. “Yes Master.”

 

Her response draws him to move back to her, and press a kiss against her forehead. “Good girl.” He told her quietly, she can feel him about to leave and without thinking she grasps his hand. Doe eyes wide.

 

“Sorry Master.. I.. I need to tell you something.” She said quietly, nibbling at her lip. He watches her for a moment, trying to calculate what she’s going to say before she says it. 

 

“Go on Trixabelle.” He’s lost the hint softness that was in his voice before, but she isn’t afraid. She can understand why he would think that she might be hiding something from him after last time she made a confession.

 

“I wanted to tell you that I don’t work for SHIELD anymore. I don’t work for anyone. You were right, they’re not heroes. And I don’t want to be a hero anymore. I just want to be yours.” She tells him truthfully The men she killed, they don’t haunt her. If she were a hero then they would be keeping her up at night. She would see their faces over and over in her mind. But she knows the truth. They would have killed her. Killed Adam. And they were working for the people who sliced her up like a christmas ham. SHIELD, ARI they were the same thing. Everybody did terrible things. She’s grown tired of pretending to a hero. She shed that skin a long time ago, and like a snake's it grows dry and turns to dust before her eyes. Trixie doesn’t mourn the girl whose face still blows in the wind around new york city. She doesn’t have time for that. She’s ready to be someone new now. Someone who belongs to him.

 

“Get on your knees on the floor.” He says, and moves away from her. Trixie isn’t sure why, but she does as she says. Watching his back as he walks over to one of the drawers. He opens the drawer and she waits nervously. Unsure if her pledge of loyalty was well received, he hadn’t asked for it after all. Perhaps she had been mistaken to think that she wanted it. However when he turns, she knows that he wasn’t. As he moves in front of her, she can see something dangling off his fingers. A small disk on a chain, almost like a circular dog tag.

 

“This was given to me to represent Beiste. But I think I would like for it to represent Babygirl too. Stand up Trixabelle.” He says his hand out offering her the necklace. Slowly Trixie stood up, and without a second thought she reached out and took the necklace from him.

 

“Thank you Master.” She said quietly, running her finger over the little B. “Will you put it on me Master?” She asked, looking up at him. Her cheeks flushed, and he nodded. A look of contentment on his face. He reached and took the necklace back from her.

 

“Turn around Babygirl.” He told her, and Trixie turned her body flush against his as he fastened the necklace around her neck. It felt right, and she smiled. As he put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. Fingers reaching down to tilt her chin up. “I love you Trixabelle. You’re my good girl.”

 

“I love you too Master.” She tells him softly, and then he’s kissing her. He leaves her only a few minutes later, but something changes when she steps out of that room with the B on. She can feel it. 

 

Despite her elation at the news with Adam. The dripping tap of Lia bleeds in the back of her mind. It punctuates her every movement, it’s an aftertaste in every bite that she swallows. Asking about her would be a mistake and she knows that, every time the question comes to the tip of her tongue Phil shakes his head. She only ever dared to ask him once, when she was tired enough that she couldn’t block out the dripping tap. Sat in her little pink pyjamas, waiting for Adam to take her up to bed. 

 

“Have you got a family Phil?” She had asked quietly, not moving her eyes from the movie that was playing quietly on TV. Fingers picking at the little slippers that had arrived after she had warned Adam of a drug bust that was due to target one of his best suppliers.

 

“Yep. I gotta husband at home, maybe you can meet him sometime. He’d like you.” Phil says conversationally. His comment makes Trixie smile, and she almost feels bad that she only asked the question to set up asking about Lia. She’s always wanted to know more about Phil, she likes to think that they’re kinda friends. He reminds her a little of her Dad sometimes, in the best kind of way. 

 

“When did you get married?” She says looking at him, Phil hadn’t seem like the type to be settled down. But he spoke about his husband in a fond way. She was glad that he was happy.

 

“Year a go. Small thing, none of that over the top shit. Why?” He asked, she can tell that he’s getting a little suspicious of her now. Perhaps she let some of the guilt creep onto her face, She’s soft around Phil, she needs to stop that from happening again.

 

“I was thinking about my family-” She starts, and he’s already shaking his head.

 

“No can do kid. I ain’t telling you anything about your sister unless the boss gives the word. I’ll let you off with asking this time. But don’t ask me again, or I’ll pass the message on that cha askin questions. And we all know that won’t go down well.”

 

She’s left it alone since then, she knows that Phil's right. She can’t afford to ask right now, she was lucky to get off with a spanking an extended sentence for her and Jasper's rescue mission. She has to be a good girl. But Lia is her sister. She can use him as a buffer, she’s safe from night terrors with him by her side. She can almost forget, what she is when he’s looking at her. But the truth is, that she’s as dirty as any of the guys here. It’s sick that she’s willing to let her own sister suffer while she sleeps in the arms of the man she loves. 

 

But Trixie is wiser than to go messing in what could only get her in more trouble, if she wants to see Lia she has to prove her loyalty. And so she keeps silent, and cooks. Makes predictions and gets so many pats on the back. The visions come easier than they ever did for SHIELD, she performs her job as an alarm bell perfectly

  
Two weeks of very good behaviour down the line, Lia is invited to dinner. Trixie is torn, does she make Adams favourite as a thank you. Or something for Lia, something to show her how much she’s missed her. In the end she does both, there are meatballs and spaghetti and then cupcakes with all different frosting for dessert. Adam isn’t much for sweets, but she hopes that the espresso cupcakes might be enough to tempt him. Setting dinner out she nods to herself, she’s nervous. She has no idea what it’s going to be like to see Lia. No idea what Lia will think of her. Her heart is pounding, and the doors to the dining room open.


	26. Words I Couldn't Say

The moment she see’s Lia, she runs. All it takes is half a glimpse of the half ombred hair before she’s across the room. Usually she waits nicely at the end of the table until Adam and her sit. But seeing her sister, she can’t wait. Nothing could stop her, she feels like someone could have put half an army in between them and she would have fought them off with her bare hands. Sure it hadn’t been that long since the rescue. But she had held the girl who was half of her in her arms for only a few seconds before she had been ripped away from her, the last time they had met. She hits the familiar body a little harder than she had intended. Knocking the wind out of herself, in a long sigh of relief. Arms grasping desperately at the body that mimics hers almost exactly. They have different scars, different minds. But for the first time in so long, Trixie feels completely whole. 

 

But it doesn’t take her long to realise that something is wrong, her arms may be gripping Lia but there is no hold on her. No arms to return the love and relief that she feels pouring out every cell of her body. Slowly Trixie looks up at her sister, brown eyes wide with confusion. She see’s absolute despair in her sister's eyes, limbs tensed, face taunt.

 

“Lia?” She asks quietly, not letting go. Maybe she’s in shock, but Lias lips don’t move. Not one piece of her shows any sign that she’s heard Trixie. Her eyes show only pain, and Trixie feels tears brimming in her eyes. “Lia.. talk to me. It’s me. I’m here. I promise.” She says, letting go with one hand to reach up and touch her sister's cheek. “Lia?” She asks again, thumb stroking over the tan cheek in front of her. “Starshine?” With no response, Trixie searches again and she see’s it. A single tear streaking down her sisters face as she watches her as if from far away. Lia trying, it’s not that she doesn’t want to speak. It’s that she can’t. And she finally looks over the top of her sister to the hulking form lurking in the doorway. He compelled her, of course he compelled her. 

 

“Let her talk.. please. Just.. let her touch me. Please.” She begs, imploring him with her entire being. She’ll get on her knees right here if she has to, she didn’t expect to feel so desperate. She had been fine, holding everything together until this moment. Until she saw her sister, trapped inside herself like this. Her sisters worst fears playing out in front of her. He watches her intently, and she feels the hot tears streaking down her cheek. “Please. For me.” She holds his gaze, and slowly he moves off the door frame.

 

“You may touch her Lia, but only her. And you may speak.” He allows, and then Lia is clutching her. Trixie sobs into her shoulder, burying her face there as Lia keeps one hand on her back and one grasps onto her hair. 

 

“Trixie. Oh my god. Trixie.” Hearing Lias voice only makes her cry more, it’s like the faucet that had been dripping in the back of her mind. Had exploded out of her in a gush, and she can’t let go. She can’t bear to think about ever letting Lia go again. She’d let SHIELD torture her for the rest of her life if she could just hold Lias hand while they did. If she could just hold onto this moment for a little longer. “Trixie..” There’s nothing to say, Lia doesn’t have to say anything because Trixie already knows what she means. And for a few more moments she can lose herself in the pure relief of being with her sister once more. Until she slowly removes her face from her sisters shoulder to look back at the man she had given herself to. And slowly, she takes a deep breath in.

 

“Are.. are you.. you guys hungry?” She chokes out. “I made spaghetti for you..” She falters at Adams name, it’s perfectly natural to call him Master in this house. Nobody questions her, but she’s looking at Lia now. Her sister isn’t going to read this as a BDSM thing, there was a very different way that she would see it. As someone who had clearly spent a very long time being compelled, Master would be very much the wrong word for Trixie to say right now. She didn’t know what Lia knew, or what her and Adam had spoken about. But from the mood in the room she could tell that they were not on good terms.

 

“Let's eat then.” Adam says, and Trixie has to breath somewhat of a sigh of relief. She was worried he might title check her, and she doesn’t know if she’s ready to start explaining everything yet. She starts to go and sit down but Lia grasps her wrist. Unwilling to let go, her eyes asking Trixie so many questions that she can’t answer.

 

“It’s okay Starshine. Come on, I made cupcakes for afters.” Trixie tells Lia, body tense as she worries that compulsion will follow if Lia doesn’t cooperate soon. Lia stands her ground, and Trixie shakes her head. “It’s okay, I’m not going anywhere. Come and eat. I missed hearing your opinion on my cooking.” She’s trying so hard to keep it together now, tears still drying on her face. She’d promise Lia the world if she would just play along. Finally with a tug from Trixie, Lia moves and then there is an awkward moment as they all reach the table. She’s not sure where to sit, often she serves Adam. So then she stands again, and Lia looks panicked. “I’m just going to dish up.” She promises, and then makes her way over to Adam. Serving him quietly, and giving him a soft smile. “Thank you.” She says, seeing Lia doesn’t change who she is now. She loves her sister with her entire being, but it doesn’t change her views on SHIELD or where her loyalties lie.

 

She moves back round to serve Lia then, only to see her sister growing. “Why did you say thank you?” She asks, and Trixie wants to shake her head. Not now, she’s not ready to explain yet. She doesn’t have any explanation that she thinks could possibly justify the truth. Oh btw sis while you were desperately searching for me, I started banging the guy who’s been compelling you and now we’re an item. This is really not the kind of first boyfriend that her and Lia had giggled about her having. 

 

“Because you’re here, and I.. I really wanted to see you.” Trixie replies, before Adam can answer for her and watches as Lias face pulls down into a frown.

 

“And you didn’t want to see me before?” She accuses, eyes narrowed at Trixie as she leans over to pour some sauce onto her plate. Trixie shakes her head, trying again to shut Lia up. Now wasn’t the time or the place for this. “What didn’t you? It’s been months.”

 

“Of course I wanted to see you.. it’s complicated Lia.” Trixie says, and watches as Lias eyes flashed. Looking over at Adam.

 

“You mean he wouldn’t let you.” Lia accused, glaring daggers at Adam. Trixie put her hand on Lias, mentally willing her to shut up.

 

“I said that it’s complicated Lia.” She replies, her tone begging now. She couldn’t have Lia pulled away from her now. 

 

“Like he forced you to say you were friends.. like he forced you not to come and speak to me, like he forced you-” There’s a look in Lias eyes that tells Trixie everything that her sister is accusing Adam of and Trixie can’t handle that.

 

“No.” Trixie says, sharper than she wants to speak to her sister after not seeing her for all this time. But she can’t have Lia thinking that. 

 

“Like he ra-” Lia starts, and Trixie feels like she might be sick if Lia actually says the word that she can tell is on the end of her tongue. 

  
“Enough. Silence.” Adam commands and Trixie bites down on her lip. His expression is one of fury, and she stands back from the table. Lia fumes, Trixie can see every part of her body straining to attempt to fight off the compulsion. “This was a mistake. Jasper.” The blonde appears far too quickly, and Trixie dips forward trying to grasp at Lia. Not again, no. She can’t be away from Lia again. “Take Lia upstairs. Trixabelle stay where you are. Lia you will not fight him.” It’s cold, and Trixie finds tears back in her eyes as her sister is carried out of the room. She doesn’t know how many more times she can bear to see this happen, or if her sister will ever forgive her when she learns the truth.


	27. Chapter 27

Trixie had never known what people might think of her and Lias true origin until after they had been realised from SHIELD. Until she had heard people try to justify torturing two fifteen year old girls in the name of science. They didn’t like it when she said the word torture, she watched them shuffle their papers and adjust their ties when she looked them in the eyes and accused them of what she knew to be true. She wasn’t about to let them forget what they were talking about, sanitize it by calling it ‘improper experimentation.’ 

 

Her visions allowed her to see everything that they were saying about them, see the lawyers sat around the table attempting to explain. Attempting to accept the least blame possible, while still trying to bring them round to the idea that they should come back and work for SHIELD. It was apparent that SHIELD believed that they could shift blame onto a few members of their company and convince them that the organisation as a whole was a sound one. But Trixie didn’t believe that for even a second.

 

They wanted Lia, everyone had seen what she was capable of now. She was the powerful superhero that they wanted on their new team. There was no way that any government body in the world was going to allow Lia to exist without having her at least monitored. She was perceived to be the more mentally stable of the two, her abilities under control and reliable to an extent. They both had nightmares, that was unavoidable. But at least Lia could stay in the present, Trixie was losing time for days. Her body used to going without food and water at this point. It was strange to see herself in the mirror, the dark bags under her eyes contrasting with sickly pale skin. She didn’t recognise herself anymore, not after living so much of her life in visions of the future. Her grip on the present had been so weak that when she did speak she was having conversations that hadn’t happened yet. Speaking to people who weren’t there. 

 

They had wanted to put her away, send her to a state of the art mental institution upstate. She imagined that life for herself, endless days of living like a crazy person until eventually she really did lose her mind. Of course Bruce wouldn’t hear of it, but she had heard them say that her and Lia weren’t real people. That they were just test subjects that happened to look like humans. Her and Lia technically didn’t classify for human rights according to some of the men who had sat in a room bouncing ideas off one another. “Their abilities are their purpose.” That was one that had stuck with her, the idea that the only use that she could be to anyone was through her powers. Her and Lia weren’t humans, just experiments that had gotten out of control. They had justified the unspeakable with the simple idea that she should be grateful, that she should want to have been tested so that she could contribute. 

 

She always felt so very dry when she was completely lucid, when she suddenly saw the real world rather than shimmering images that weren’t certain yet. It was as if she had yanked rose coloured spectacles from her eyes and now she was forced to stare at things as they really were. While she was in her visions she could look for the very best version of events, Trixie always liked to look at the vision of the future where they gave her the money that she wanted and her and Lia went far away. Sometimes to somewhere they had never been before, where she would be able to feel the sun's hot rays on her skin. Or sometimes back to a beloved memory. And that is where she wasn’t sure if she was seeing a vision or simply putting wishful thinking into practice. Trixie had no idea if what she was seeing was real or just a beautiful fantasy. She had liked to stand by the window, looking out at the hospital garden. Feeling the sun on her skin as if in her far off dream and know that she could open the glass up into the outside world. The breeze that drifted in from outdoors was real and that was something at least.

 

On one such occasion she had been leaning against the glass for only a few moments when Bruce joined her, sitting in a nearby chair and watching her for a long minute. They haven’t spoken much since she got out, that’s not for lack of trying. But she doesn’t have a lot of time where she doesn’t answer his questions before he even begins to ask them. But he tries anyway and that means a lot to her, every time that he sits by her bed while she grasps at the present like water in a stream. 

 

“Hey Daddy.” She says quietly, fiddling with the edge of the white curtain that bordered the window. Though she knows that it isn’t her fault she still feels guilty that all he has seen of her since they found her is her demanding money. That wasn’t the girl that he had raised, but she didn’t know how to be anything but bitter. 

 

“Hello Trixie.” He replied softly, she could feel his eyes on her. Taking in her thin form, and the exposed red scars that littered her skin. She never bothered to cover them, she liked it when a lawyer's eye would be caught by one and occasionally there would be flash of guilt. She wanted her money, and she wanted to go. She had always been so opposed to ever going on the road again. But she would rather run that ever be trapped like that again. But with Bruce looking at them, she felt slightly uncomfortable. She would never want him to feel like any of this had been his fault, she didn’t blame him for any of it.

 

“How are you?” He asked, eyes flicking back up to her face. Trixie turned properly to face him, shrugging slightly. Once again it was a colder reaction that she would like, she didn’t want to shut him out. Yet she seemed to at every turn, yank Lia closer while shutting out the man who had raised them so well. Lia was so much easier to hold.

 

“I don’t know. When I know where I am, I’m fine. But I’m hardly here anymore these days.” She admitted, while she didn’t like to tell Lia these things. She didn’t see any point in hiding it from her father, he was the one who had taught her to control her powers in the first place. Her statement sounded dramatic but she didn’t know how else to describe it. Than that she was absent from her own body. “It’s like I’m back where I started. I hate it. I can’t read, or take a shower without losing time. It makes me feel like a child.”

 

“That’s not your fault.” He told her quietly, and she watched the guilt flash over his face. Being straight with him was better than trying to pretend, after all he was her parent. He wanted to take care of her.

 

“It’s not yours either Daddy, you thought that you were doing what was right for us.” Trixie replied, more emotionlessly than she would have liked but it was the best that she could do. That seemed to be a theme with her, trying to give him an emotional reaction and ending up sounding more bitter than ever. It was hard to be anything but tired and angry. But she was trying for him.

 

“It’s not enough.” He starts and she shakes her head. 

 

“Please don’t.. I can’t. I can’t make you feel any better. Lia is better at this stuff. I can’t comfort you. I just. Believe me Daddy if I blamed you, then you would know about it.” She tells him on no uncertain terms.  “I hate them, I hate each and every single one of them.” Trixie told him, turning so that she was facing him. She really wanted to make him understand, but at the same time she was too exhausted to manage. It was pathetic really.

 

“It’s okay Trixie.. you don’t have to justify yourself to me..” He says, and Trixie has to go to him then. She wraps her arms around him tightly, she wants to stay. Wants to stay in the here and now with him and Lia but she doesn’t know how. She’s gripping onto him with her fingers, grasping the present with the same clawing movements. He hugs her back, not tight. He has never hugged them tightly, he touches them with the utmost care. Always so afraid that her and Lia might break. She wants to feel him grip her harder for someone to hold her so tight that she can’t slip away. “What do you want Trixie?” He asks quietly.

 

“I want my money, and I want to go. Today. Me, you and Lia.. Like it always was. I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to go Daddy.” She replies, still holding on. Though she knows he is pulling back, worrying. Worrying that he is upsetting her. She’s never really liked touch, she likes clean and order. Sterile. But not with him and Lia, she needs them. 

 

Bruce pulls back from her, his face concerned. Hands on her thin shoulders, and she’s reminded of when she was a little girl and he was trying to see if she was telling the truth. Lia was never a good liar funnily enough. She didn’t have the patience for it, but Trixie could lie for the both of them. When Lia was naughty it was usually because she was bored or because she had gone on some little adventure. Trixie liked to be a good girl, to follow rules. Her infractions were never in the name of fun or adventure, they were usually something that she thought would benefit her in some way. He’s trying to read her, and she feels so distant. On the edge of seeing what impact this little conversation has had on his life, she fights it. Putting her hands on his wrist, trying to keep hold of reality for a little while longer. 

 

“I’ll do my best Trixie.. for you and your sister.” Bruce replies, and she nods. Clinging to him once again, hugging him tightly. She manages that for a lot longer than usual and it feels like a great victory.

 

Of course they didn’t go, she got her money but in the end she couldn’t bring herself to demand that Lia leave Dan. That Bruce take her away. She loves them too much for that, she would never want to make them miserable for her. But as they move into the Avengers tower, as she see’s her pretty new room. She imagines being far away, that Lia had taken her hand and they had gone somewhere else. It’s a strange feeling, Lia wanting to stay and her wanting to go. It didn’t seem right at all. She never told Lia that she wanted to go, because she knew that Lia would have packed a bag right then and there. Lia would do anything for her.

 

That’s the only way she made it through those first few months at Stark tower, curling up with Lia and hiding from the world. She refused SHIELD, staying indoors. With her books, and her cooking. It was safe there, she could keep a hold on herself. But she couldn’t help but feel bad seeing Lia sitting indoors with her, it was cruel. For Lia to be able to hear the city outside and yet feel as if she couldn’t move with it. 

 

One day it had been pouring with rain and they had laid on their backs under a great glass window, hands twined between them. 

 

“It’s pouring down.” Trixie said quietly, without moving her eyes from the droplets that pounded on the transparent material as it tried to reach them.

 

“It’s like someone's drop massive buckets on us, or like has a hose pointed directly at us.. we should tell them that we don’t need watering.” Lia laughed, wriggling a little. Shoulders rubbing against the carpet.

 

“Maybe, I don’t know. It looks pretty from here.. maybe they’re just trying to give us a show.” Trixie suggested, shrugging her own shoulders. Thumb rubbing across the back of Lias hand. 

 

“That would be nice of them. I like shows, Dan suggested that we go and see a play soon. I’d like to see a musical, one with lots of dancers and maybe backflips. You think that one of them would be willing to teach me to do a backflip?” Lia asked, swinging their hands a little. Making Trixies skin, skim across the carpet.

 

“They’d be fools not to.” Comes Trixies quiet response, before she turns her head to look at Lia. “You and Dan should go.” She suggested.

 

“Nah..” Lia chimes in all too quickly. “Couldn’t go without you Trixalix.” She protests, though there is a hint of longing in her voice that Trixie cannot ignore.

 

“I mean it though.. Just because I don’t want to doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.” The smaller of the two brunettes says with a kind of certainty that she hadn’t used in a while.

 

“But things aren’t fun without you, and it would make me really sad to think of you up here all alone while I wasn’t out learning to backflip.” Lia pouts, still looking up at the ceiling as if the rain might change something. 

 

In the end they go to the play together, Trixie barely see it. But she does see Lias face, and the smile there is what makes the constant stream of images that she didn’t want bearable. It’s why she goes back to SHIELD in the end, to be with Lia. To do the right thing. Because they are together, her and Lia. She doesn’t want Lia to go anywhere that she can’t follow. Though as she chews on the cupcake that she made for her sister, she has to wonder if perhaps it is her that has gone somewhere that Lia cannot follow.


	28. Waking Up

She can’t sleep, Adam went out after dinner and left her to her thoughts. And her mind won’t stop ticking.  She doesn’t dare close her eyes, because she’ll see her sister. Locked up. Caged. It happened the minute, he left the house. It was like his leaving snapped something inside her, she could hear the door close and then Lias face washed into her line of sight. As if a flood gate had broken and then her brain was flooded. Her visions of Lia are too strong to stop. She doesn’t want to blink because every time she closes her eyes, she see’s Lia pounding her fists on the walls fists hammering against the concrete until her skin begins to crack. Screaming both verbally and inside her own mind to be let out, Trixie cannot make the visions go away even when her eyes aren’t closed. That just rooms away Lia is hurting. She feels Lias anger, and desperation. It’s all leaking through, all Lias pain. Her sister is so full of life even with that dead look in her eyes, it’s almost like she knows that she is doing is useless. That if she stops then it might really all be over. 

 

Trixie is almost bent over, with every emotion that is running through Lias body. Her visions cannot provide her with if Lia is in any physical pain. The connection doesn’t work that way, but the emotions are enough to be dizzying. She’s losing time, not even sure if what is going on is happening in real time or if she’s just playing the same thing over and over. Trixie has no grip on if it’s night or day. It’s like before, she’s completely gone. No grip on reality at all. She thinks at some point she made it from the dining room to their bedroom, but she can’t be sure. Trixie isn’t sure if she is lying down or if she’s standing. She’s never experienced a vision like this before, usually in a true vision she’s completely inside it. Yet now she is partially aware. She can half see the bedroom.

 

At some point Adam comes home, she doesn’t know when. He’s merely a blip in the slideshow that is playing on repeat. “Trixabelle.” He says, but she can’t hear him. It’s like he’s underwater. She’s looking at him, yet the visions of Lia are still half playing in front of her. As if someone has put a Lia filter over her eyes. He puts his hands on her shoulders, when she doesn’t respond to him. And she struggles, fighting him like she’s a wild animal. Her emotions are muddled, Lias cloud her own thoughts. “Trixabelle.” He says again, sounding further away than ever. He might have spoken before, she doesn’t remember. Her head spins, Lias pounding on the walls echoes in her ears. Like a drum beat, along with her heart pounding. Trixie clasps her hands on her head, wanting to steady herself.  _ “Help! Help!” _ Lia is screaming in her ears. And Trixie tears at her hair, pulling at it as if trying to yank it off her head. 

 

“Stop. Trixabelle, you will stop that!” He orders, but it doesn't matter. She pulls harder, before he yanks her hands from her head.  _ “Let her go! Let her go.”  _ Lia is talking about her, she doesn’t know what Trixie has done. She’s still fighting, and Trixie screams. “Make it stop.” She begs, unsure of if he’s really there. “Make it stop!” She bends over double. “Please, I can’t. I need it all to go away.”  

 

“Trixabelle! Tell me what I can do.” He says, sounding slightly desperate. “Please I need quiet. You have to let her go. Lia.. Please. Just quiet the noise.” Her breathing is getting ridiculous, and she finally has to close her eyes for a moment.

When she opens them again things have shifted, she knows it. She thinks he’s holding her, but she isn’t sure. Then with one last look at Lias face. Everything goes black. 

 

Her head is still stinging when she finally emerges from the blackness, she doesn’t open her eyes. But she feels as if she has finally come up from under the water. It’s a feeling she recognises, it reminds her of just after she had come out of SHIELD that same feeling of sudden clarity that came after she could finally break loose of her visions. Her body feels heavy, despite the soft sheets that cover her body. 

 

“Has this ever happened before?” Comes the harsh yet somehow comforting voice of Adam, who seems to be very close to her. She knows that if she wanted to, she could reach out and touch him. Though for some reason she doesn’t dare open her eyes, she is too afraid. That it could all start again. She doesn’t know if she could bear it again.

 

“Yes.” It’s Lias voice, and Trixies stomach clenches. In the back of her mind, the recording of Lias screams threaten to loop again. “After we came out of SHIELD she could lose herself for days. Especially if she caught onto a particular image. She described it being like a film, playing over and over.” There is a bitterness in her sister's voice that she doesn’t recognise, Lia sounds so much older. And somehow she feels that these answers aren’t being forced, Lia sounds too calm for that.

 

“How did you bring her out?” Adam asks, and his thumb brushes over the edge of her cheek. A miniscule movement but somehow it’s very comforting. Trixie can almost taste the tension that hangs in the air. It’s like they are two predators, forced to share the same space despite a natural instinct to hate and kill the other.

 

“We didn’t.. well we tried. But it’s not that easy you know. She gets stuck.” Lia snaps, her own hand reaching down to clutch Trixies. Trixie tries to squeeze back but her body still feels so heavy. She’s lucid but she’s weaker than ever, and it’s more frustrating than Trixie can even really begin to conceptualise. “She’s always worst when the vision was of me, the closer to the person she is. The harder it is for her to shake it. Well at least that’s what she told me.” There is spite in that, and Trixie wants to tell Lia not to fight with him. 

 

“None of that answers my question.” He snaps back, Trixie wants to shh him to tell him that Lia is only acting like this because she’s worried about her. But she feels like it wouldn’t help anyway, Adam and Lias fate was decided a long time ago. Adam had set them up to be rivals and nothing that happened now was likely going to change that. But it didn’t mean that Trixie didn’t wish that wasn’t true. 

 

“I don’t know.” Lia admits. “It always seemed random, there wasn’t a magic trick. She just came back in the end. You know. She was never usually gone for this long.” There is a twinge of worry in the anger now, and Trixie tries again to squeeze her sister's hand. She wanted to listen in to them, but she needs to let them know that she’s back now. She doesn’t want them to worry about her. “Can’t you just order her to wake up, like you ordered her-”

 

“If you wish to remain here, remember who you’re fucking talking to.” Adam spits, and Trixie can feel the dip in the bed as he clenches it. Now Trixie is screaming at her body to cooperate, she doesn’t want them to fight anymore. She just wants them to know she’s okay. She doesn’t need them to worry about her like this. But her body only feels heavier, and she feels the blackness lurking threateningly in the corners of her mind. But Trixie doesn’t want that, not when they’re fighting. So she took a deep breath in and sat up, Lia was right. Nobody could bring her back, only she could bring herself back.

 

She’s greeted by two pairs of eyes. Both surveying her. 

 

“Trixie!” Lia squeaks, and there is a stirring of Lias old bounce in her voice and Trixie can’t help but smile a little bit. 

 

“You should lie down.” Adam rumbles, Trixie wants to reach up and pet his face. He sounds uncomfortable, unsure of what to do with the fact that she is awake. Carefully Trixie lies against the pillows but more propped up than before. “Get Trixabelle water.” He barks, to someone passing by the door. She’s in her and Adams bed, and it feels strange to have Lia in this space. It was something that Trixie was scared for her to see. She’s still not sure how the version of herself that Adam knows and the version of herself that is Lias go together. She’s not sure if they can, but for now it just feels good to see them both.

 

Adam frowning, with his arms folded as he surveys her as if hoping that if he looks hard enough he will know exactly how to stop this from ever happening again. Lia is kind of smiling, it doesn’t quite reach her eyes, but she doesn’t look like the same person that Trixie saw banging on those walls. 

 

“How long was I asleep?” Trixie asks, and finds that her voice is barely a croak of noise. It seems strange, that it hurts to speak. After all she was only sleeping.

 

“You have been unreachable for almost three days.” Adam offers, and Lia seems to flinch a little at the fact. Trixie reaches out, wanting to squeeze her sister's hand. To give her some kind of comfort. She would offer the same to Adam, but she’s not sure if he would take it. Not in front of Lia.

  
“Oh.” She says softly, nibbling on her lip as the silence surrounds them. Trixie wants to fix it, she wants to make them understand that it’s not their fault. Wants them to know that she loves them both, but every way that it comes out in her mind sounds more weak than the last. She doesn’t want to sound weak, she wants to make them see things her way. She loves them both and that’s all there is. 


	29. The Truth

 

They all sit in silence for a long moment, before she decides that it’s make or break. Adam and her sister are in the same room with Lia seeming to have some kind of agency. Which Trixie takes as a chance to try and convince the two of them that they can in fact coexist. The water that Adam requested is brought to her, and she smiles weakly. 

 

“Thanks.” She starts, and Adam gives her a look that says that he won’t be responding to anything until she has drunk her body weight in water. She meets his eyes as she sips, already begging. Lia won’t want to hear anything that she has to say as long as he’s in the room. She needs time. But the way that he’s clutching onto the side of her bed, says that he doesn’t want to leave her. And she understands, she wouldn’t want to leave his side if it were the other way around. “I’m hungry..” She says quietly, as her stomach growls. 

 

“I’ll get Mrs Potts to make something.” Adam rumbles, and she takes a little breath. Dropping Lias hand for a moment, to reach for his. It’s a strange kind of balancing act, that she can only hold one hand at once. It’s sad, but even if this goes well Lia and Adam aren’t going to be holding hands and singing campfire songs. She squeezes his hand, unsure of how to reassure of him of her health without hurting his pride. He looks her over, for a another long moment and then moves away from the bed. Moving instead towards the door, she thinks that he might be about to give her the space that she feels she needs to speak to Lia. But instead he catches the eye of one of the people moving past, and asks for something in a low voice.

 

There is a long moment of silence in the room, before Lia seemingly explodes. “Trixie! I was so worried, when he came to get me you were in such a state.. It was.. You were muttering, and then you were all limp. I didn’t know what to do. How do you feel? Are you okay?” The familiar rhythm of Lia is shockingly soothing, despite the rapid nature of her words. And Trixie finds herself smiling for some reason, taking a few breaths in and out and letting Lias presence wash over her. “Trixie? Are you okay? Trixie.. please don’t go away again.”

 

“No.. No I’m okay.. I’m just glad to see you.” Trixie promised chancing a look at Adam who was quiet and watching her from against the wall, trying to think of how to say everything that she wanted to without Lia screaming at her. It would have been much easier if he wasn’t here, but it seemed that she was going to be allowed privacy to explain this. “Lia.. why do you work for SHIELD?” She decided to start with, it was a left field question but she needed her sister to understand that it wouldn’t matter what happened with Adam she wouldn’t be going back to SHIELD.

 

Lia looked shocked at her question which wasn’t exactly surprising, after all it wasn’t a question she had probably ever thought about. Adams expression remains unchanged, his eyes still trained on her thin form. As she readjusts herself, sits up folding her wrists in her lap as she looks at her sister. Who has taken a seat next to her bed, as she tries to think. “Um.. I dunno.. I guess because we’re helping people and Dan is and Tony and Pepper.. and everyone.” She replied with a shrug, and Trixie nodded slightly. Folding her arms around her body.  

 

“Do you.. do you like it there?” She asked, licking her lips. Her heart starting to beat faster as she watched Lias face crumple with confusion. 

 

“Of course..” Lia's voice is slower than before, she’s careful. Trixie rolls her shoulder uncomfortably, a strand of wild hair falling across her face.

 

“Right..” She coughs, the words that she wants to say won’t come out. How is she supposed to tell her sister that she never wants to go back. That she hates them all. The place that she should long for makes her feel sick. She can’t go back, even now she feels like she could break at any minute. The silence in her head is such a blessing, she needs him. She needs her quiet. 

 

“Why.. Why did you ask me that Trixie?” Lia asks, and Trixie swallows. She’s so tired. She just slept for three days, but she feels like she’s run the marathon of her life. She can’t lie to her sister right now, she can’t put on her Trixie mask and lie. Not with him stood right there, not when Lia is demanding that she explain why she stopped fighting.

 

“I don’t want to go back Lia.. I want to stay here with Adam.” She says quietly, but she meets her sister's eyes. No matter what she says Lia is going to think she’s brainwashed at first. But it doesn’t matter, in the end she’ll realise that Trixie is serious. Lias already shaking her head, moving towards the bed as Trixie wraps her arms more tightly around herself.

 

“No.. No.. Trixie you’re just saying that.. He brainwashed you. You need to come home with me, he says I can leave. I can’t tell anyone. But I can go home, and you can come with me.” Lia says, reaching out to try and hold Trixies hand. But Trixie keeps her hand clutching at her own arms, someone has changed her since that night. A soft grey sweater covering her form. She’s grateful for that, she wouldn’t want Lia seeing her scars while they have this conversation. She never lets Lia look at her scars, it might bring up a conversation that she doesn’t want to have. 

 

“No Lia.. He didn’t.” Trixie says slowly, avoiding looking at Adam at any point. It weighs heavy on her chest to look up at Lia and tell her the truth. It would be so much easier to let Lia believe that she was innocent in all of this. Maybe she could go home, maybe she could go back to making predictions in a room with Tony and Bruce. But she would always end up like this, loosing time. Losing who she was all over again. 

 

Lia shook her head again, more rapidly shaking at the hand that Trixie was using to grip her arm. Wanting to touch her, as if the physical connection would break the spell that she thought Trixie was under. “No.. No Trix.. he makes people do things. We can go home. To Daddy, to Tony and Dan..” 

 

“ No Lia, I’m not under anyone's control. He kidnapped me, yes. And he has made me do things against my will, I won't deny that. But I don’t want to go back. I didn’t want you locked in that room, I didn’t want to tell anyone about what happened to us-” Lia grabs her wrists, pulling them off her arms. Shaking Trixie a little.

“He did Trixie. He made you do it. We can go home. We can go home right now..” Lia argues, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. Trixie shakes her head, unruly curls falling in her face. 

 

“But he didn’t Lia. You know that when he uses his compulsion you can tell that you’re being compelled. He didn’t make me kiss him, he didn’t make me fuck him. I did that. I was in complete control.” Trixie replies, her tone is harsh as her own tears begin to leak down her cheeks. Squeezing her eyes shut, as she let the truth sink into the room. Still unable to meet the blue eyes that were searching for her. Refusing to step in until she asked for him.

 

Lia was sobbing a little now, Trixie could see the hope leaving her. She was breaking her sister's heart, smashing it into a million pieces. “No.. No.. You.. No.” Lia choked out, sounding like a broken record. “Trixie.. why..?”

 

“Because I love him Lia.” Trixie admitted, shallow breaths causing her chest to rise and fall rapidly. “He makes it stop.. he makes all of it stop. I can’t go back there Lia, I won’t go back.” 

 

“Stop it! Stop saying that, you’re confused. You’re not thinking right. It’s not true.” Lia argued. Her refusal to believe what Trixie was saying, was perhaps the most heartbreaking thing that she had ever seen.

 

“I’m never going back there Lia.” Trixie yelled, ripping her wrists from her sister's grasp and wrapping her arms around her knees. Isolating herself, a single tear streaking down her cheek as she watched Lia move backwards like Trixie had burned her.

 

“But it’s our home Trixie.” Was the whispered statement that left her sister's mouth, but Trixie shook her head.

 

“No Lia. It’s your home, Tony and Dan. They’re your friends, New York is your city. It hasn’t been my home in a long time.” 

 

“How can you say that?” Lia snapped, anger and hurt starting to make their way to the surface to replace the disbelief that had been the prominent emotion before. 

 

“Enough.” Trixie had almost forgotten that Adam was even in the room, until he moved across to loom over the both of them. A part of her wanted to tell him that this was between him and Lia, but the weaker part of her wanted him to fix it for her. “How could she not say that.” He rumbled, tugging at Trixies sleeve despite a slight struggle from her. Revealing her scars to Lia. “Why the fuck would she want to go back to a place that did this to her. Why the fuck do you want to go back there.”

 

Trixie cringed away from his hand, and he let her go. Perhaps trying to prove a point that he wasn’t the thing that was holding her here entirely. 

 

“It’s none of your business.” Lia fumed, clearly uncomfortable with the evidence that had just been presented to her. Her own skin remained clear of marks, that had always made Trixie feel so painfully powerless. She knew of course that Lia was not unaffected by what had happened to them, but she didn’t have to walk around with the evidence right there on her body for people to see. She didn’t have to spend summers in long sleeves. It was unfair to hold that against her, but Trixie couldn’t help but think of it as her sister avoided her eyes.

 

“Come with me now.” Adam ordered looking between them for a moment and ignoring Lias last remark. It wasn’t compulsion as far as Trixie could tell, but honestly she wasn’t sure if she could tell right now. She still felt more weak than she would like to admit as he lifted her from the bed and carried her down to his office. Lia walked beside them, with an express that Trixie couldn’t read. 

 

Adam set her down on the couch that faced his desk, lying her down gently. Lia took an uncomfortable seat next to her and Trixies heart dropped as he pressed on a familiar remote. Already sure of what was going to appear on screen, sure enough her own tear stained face stared back at her. She could barely watch as her screams filled up the office, trying to hold onto her already fragile grip on reality. She didn’t want to relive it. 

 

“Look at her.” Adam demanded, though Trixie didn’t want to see what he was talking about. As she squeezed her eyes shut again. Trying to focus on where she was right now. The feeling of the leather against her bare feet. Drawing her legs up once more, closing in on herself. Her anchor the sound of Lias breaths beside her. “Fucking look at her.”

 

“She was better! She was happy back home.” Lia argued, and Trixie opened her eyes in surprise. To find that neither of them were looking at the screen. Instead both sets of eyes in the room were fixed on her. She felt naked, as Lias eyes swept over her tense form, the scars still stark on her arms. 

 

“Was she? Because I saw her. They sent her to me as bait. And nobody came to save her.” His words cut through her, and Trixie curled further in on herself. Feeling powerless once again, as her own screams echoed in her ears.

 

“She wasn’t like this! You did this!” Lia yelled, and Trixie flinched and shook her head.

 

“No. He didn’t.” She argued, meeting a set of identical eyes with the truth that she knew the other girl didn’t want to hear. Not even a little. “I told you Lia. I wanted to go, I wanted to leave. Everyday back there was a fight. I love you Lia, almost more than anything.. but I can’t live like that again. Not knowing if I’m really here at all.. I need to know that I’m me.”

 

“Trixie.. I’ll help.. It will be different.” The begging broke Trixies heart into even more pieces, as she watched the light in Lias eyes dim. She had been sure that, she had seen Lia at her very worst. But this was harder even than watching Lia being tortured, because at least then she had been powerless to stop it. Now it was her doing the hurting, Adam wasn’t controlling her, nobody was tying her to this spot. She was willingly destroying the person that she swore she loved above all else.

 

“No it won’t. They tortured us. They don’t care if we live or die. They don’t care Lia, how can you want to do anything for them?” Trixie asked, swallowing trying to justify herself now. Scrambling to make Lia understand.

 

“Because that’s what we do Trixie… we help people..” Lia replied softly. “We help people together.. Why wouldn’t you tell me? If you were so unhappy, why didn’t you say anything?” Trixie let out a small sob, not sure how to get the words. Not sure how to explain.

 

“I couldn’t.. after we said we would stay.. how could I say that I still wanted to go. You looked at me so differently when I said I wanted money. I wanted to be a hero like you and Daddy. But I’m not like you..” She whispered, as the version of herself on screen screamed louder and she clamped her hands on her ears.

 

“That’s not true Trixie.” Lia started, but Trixie couldn’t think about it anymore. It was all too much, her focus was taken by her own desperate words. She couldn’t believe anything that Lia was saying when she could hear herself.

 

“Turn it off. Please.” She begged, and Adam pressed the button on the remote. Moving over to her.

 

“It’s okay babygirl-” He started

 

“Trixie.” Lia started again.

 

“That’s enough.” Adam ordered, scooping her up again. “She needs to rest now.” 

 

“No. We need to talk about this.” Lia argued, and Trixie was disgusted with the way she simply rested her cheek against Adams shoulder. She had to stop, she had to stop being a victim. But she just felt exhausted, so tired. 

 

“Not today you don’t. I’ll be back.” Was the last thing that Adam said, before he carried her from the room. Putting her back in the bed, and despite herself. Trixie found herself curling up, and letting sleep take her. It was the coward's way out, but it was the only one that she knew.


	30. Endings and Beginnings

Lia left. 

She woke up and her sister had gone. It was the kind of hurt that she hadn’t anticipated. Out of all the outcomes that she had imagined from the truth finally coming out, Lia leaving without saying goodbye hadn’t been one of them. Their conversation hadn’t felt over, not to her at least. So once she had gathered herself she had asked Adam where her sister was. Only to find her gone.

 

Waking up, she was free. Free from any of Adam's influence, free from SHIELD and yet the only thing she had done with her freedom was cry into Adam's chest like a child. Her and Lia had been parted before, they had been half the world away one another. But never before had she truly felt like she lost her. They had fought, been angry. But there had never been a fight that she felt that they couldn’t come back from. This wasn’t like when she went away to boarding school because they both just needed space. This was Lia walking out of her life and Trixie didn’t know if she was strong enough to handle Lias loss, not after everything that they had been through. So she clung to the one thing that she had left. Adam.

 

For the first few hours, she didn’t want to believe that Lia had really left. She had to see it for herself, see the empty room and the car that her sister had taken. And really feel it. Stare at the physical evidence of the gaping hole in her heart, and breathe it in. Running her fingers over the few items of clothing that Lia had left behind, before she let them drop to the floor. Then came the tears, which didn’t subside for a long while. Letting her body rock with sadness, clutching onto Adam in case he too left her. Before finally she came to hold a phone in her hand, for the first time for what felt like years. 

 

Trixie had grown used to not being allowed technology, perhaps it would have been easier if Adam had forbidden her from making contact with Lia. If she could once again play the innocent victim, unable to take responsibility for the situation. But with the phone at her use, it didn’t matter that her sister had left. She could call, she could ask for an explanation. Though her throat was still hoarse from crying, and her hands shook slightly as she typed in the familiar number for her home. Glad that she could still remember it. It rang three times, and then finally came.

 

“Hello.” It wasn’t Lia, but the voice on the end of the phone made Trixie feel like that she might start crying again. 

 

“Daddy.” She whispered, leaning against the wall as if she was bracing herself against a great impact. She hadn’t spoken to her father in over a year, and hearing his voice felt surreal. Often her father got pushed aside because of the intense connection between her and her sister. But he was so important to her too, yet she had to confess that he hadn’t been as present in her thoughts of home as he maybe should have been. 

 

“Trixie? Trixie.. Is that you?” He asked, disbelief evident in his voice, and Trixie took a long shuddering breath as she tried to hold herself together. Clutching the fancy smart phone that Adam had produced when she asked.

 

“Yes.. Dad. It’s me.” She replied, covering her mouth with her hand. “I’m okay… It really was me on the phone before.” She added, unsure of what else to say to him. Trixie didn’t know if she could ever explain where she was. She wasn’t stupid enough to assume that Adam had allowed Lia to leave without first making sure that she wouldn’t speak a word about what she had seen. 

 

“Trixie.” Bruce said again, her name sounding like a foreign language on his lips. As if he was testing out a language that he hadn’t spoken for many years “Trixie where are you? Is Lia with you? Are okay.. What happened to you. We’ve been searching for you for so long” Trixie had never heard her father sound so very urgent, and it was almost flattering that he seemed so very panicked. Again she felt a flash of guilt, her father must have been every bit as much hurt during her disappearance as Lia. Yet she hadn’t thought of him at all. 

 

“I.. I can’t tell you where I am Dad.. I’m hiding. SHIELD tried to send me on a mission and I didn’t want to be a part of it. And if they find out where I am.. You know that they will try to bring me back. I was with Lia. She was here.” Trixie found herself stuck for a moment, unable to move past the fact that yes Lia had been here. Lia had been with her, and now she wasn’t. “But um.. She.. She’s on her way back.. She um.. She didn’t feel the same about things here.” Trixie had to take another long deep shuddering breath after she admitted that, feeling like she was picking at the hole in her heart in the same way that she picked holes in her cardigan.

 

“So Lia is on her way back?” Bruce confirmed, and Trixie nodded before she realised that he couldn’t see her. 

 

“Yeah..” She gulped, looking over her shoulder as she noted that Adam had entered the room and was now standing against the wall watching her as she tried to hold it together. 

 

“Trixie.. She’s.. Why won’t you come home? If you’re in some kind of trouble I promise that we will do everything in our power to help you.” Bruce assured her, and Trixie felt awful. He had lost both of his children, twice. And now one of them was telling him that she didn’t want to come home. 

 

Trixie took a deep breath, glancing over at Adam for a moment. “Dad.. do you remember when we first moved into Stark tower and you asked me.. What I wanted? What would make me happy?” 

 

“Yeah.” There was already a kind of sad note of understanding to her father's voice, like he knew what she was going to tell him and now he was trying to ready himself to be supportive of the words that came next.

 

“I met somebody Dad, and he makes me happy. I love you, and I love Lia. More than I can possibly tell you. But I want to be here with him.” Trixie wanted to go over and stand with Adam while she spoke. But she wanted to give Bruce her undivided attention, even if only for a few more moments. 

Bruce was quiet for a moment, and Trixies heart sank a little. “Okay Trixie.. I mean.. I just want you to be safe and happy.” He told her, as Trixie gripped the phone a little more tightly. “I know that New York didn’t suit you.. Like it suits your sister..”

 

“Thanks Dad.. I’ll call. But please, please don’t try and find me. I’m safe, and I’m happy. I’m sorry that I made you worry so much.. I just.. I had to go.” Trixie explained, knowing that Bruce was the one person on earth who might be able to understand running in the way that she was making out that she had. 

 

There was another long silence. “Ok. I love you Trixie.” He told her, his tone made it sound like she was running out of time. Like the sand in the hourglass of her old life was finally beginning to run out and Trixies heart pounded slightly. 

 

“I love you too Dad.. you’ll tell Lia that I love her won’t you? That I love her more than anything.” Trixie begged, a tear making its way down her cheek as she tried to stay in the present. She didn’t want to see the future where Lia came home, where her and Bruce would hug and her own room would remain empty. 

 

“Ok Trixie… I guess I will speak to you soon then.” Bruce said slowly, it was strange after so long without speaking there was still so little for them to say. 

 

“Bye Dad.” Trixie whispered, and then hung up the phone. Clutching it in both hands for a long moment, before she turned to look at Adam. He watched her with his usual expression, then held out an arm for her. Which she moved almost immediately to duck under. Nestling into his side. While she was sad that her bedroom at home would remain empty, and the hole that Lia had left in her was substantial. She couldn’t find it within herself to regret the decisions that had brought her here.

  
She loved Adam and he loved her, and right now that was really the only thing that she was truly certain about. She still had no idea really what ARI was and what they wanted, she didn’t know if she was ever going to see her sister or father again. But she did know that she was safe just as long as she was with him and for now that was really the best that she could ask for.


End file.
